From the archives: Why housing shortages cause homelessness

It's not just about rents - it's also about the rooms friends and family can't afford to share

Salim Furth writes about the role space plays in preventing homelessness, for Issue 17. You can read it on our website here.

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Diona’s mom gave her one week’s notice. There were too many kids and too little space. If 17-year-old Diona didn’t find someone to stay with, she would be forced to check herself and her 3-month-old son into a homeless shelter. Because she was a minor, doing so would put her baby ‘into the system’. She was determined not to let that happen.

She found a family willing to take her in through a Christian group at her high school. There, she shared a bedroom with her own baby and a bathroom with three other children. There wasn’t enough privacy. She stayed three months with them, and then three months with another family. Each time, the tension of dissonant lifestyles steadily wore down her willingness to live by others’ rules and eat unfamiliar foods.

But the six months transformed her into a legal adult, able to take full legal responsibility for her son. And as a legal adult, Diona became legally homeless, and she was able to check herself into a shelter for single moms. Her story echoes the widely repeated observation that ‘people don’t become homeless when they run out of money, they become homeless when they run out of relationships’.

Being a homeless mom put her on the fast track for a housing voucher. She received one and found an apartment several months later. Since then, she’s moved on to a better apartment within walking distance of her retail job and her son’s preschool.

Diona charted an odyssey through her social and legal world that’s impressive for a teenager. But imagine for a moment a much simpler story: Diona stayed with her mother. That story is short and boring. It’s common and unappreciated. And if Diona’s family had happened to live in a cheaper part of the country and rented a bigger house, it might have been her story.

In the United States, the primary definition of homelessness includes those who sleep outdoors or in a tent, car, or recreational vehicle, or who are in a homeless shelter or transitional housing provided by a homeless services agency. This often differs from the colloquial use of the phrase, which connotes a vivid human portrait: a person who has lived on the street or in shelters for a long time, who spends his days begging or loafing, who likely suffers indignities, abuses, ill health, and toilet insecurity, and likely has mental illness, a drug addiction, or both.

In truth, many of the people who a passerby might call homeless aren’t homeless at all – they spend their nights in a home (perhaps an imperfect one) while spending their days in public. And many of the homeless are undetectable as such in daily life.

The American cities with the highest housing prices have the worst homelessness problems. YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) advocates highlight this correlation to argue for policies that increase housing supply. But, when you think about it a bit, it’s not clear exactly how high rent contributes to homelessness. It’s not like $800 per month apartments are any more affordable to most homeless people than $1,000 per month apartments. And homelessness is frequently associated with mental health or drug abuse problems. This is why non-YIMBY progressives insist that only more generous vouchers or subsidies can help and non-YIMBY conservatives argue that only behavioral change can help by tackling alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health problems.

The stories and data in this essay show the missing link between homelessness and housing costs: people without money who avoid becoming homeless do so mostly by staying with others, usually their own parents. This happens outside the formal housing market. But parents’ and others’ ability to offer space is limited by what they can afford in the market. Where housing costs are moderate, friends and family have bigger homes. When they are higher, friends and family don’t have space to share, and this is often what puts a vulnerable person onto the streets.

You can read the rest of the piece here.