Homelessness Starts With Housing

Homelessness Starts With Housing

In this episode of Defining Affordable, Jaime and Robin explore why the cost of housing is the single strongest predictor of homelessness — and how policy decisions helped create today’s crisis.

Through the history of housing policy in the United States — from the New Deal and deinstitutionalization to the loss of SRO housing and major federal funding cuts — they unpack how rising rents and the shortage of deeply affordable homes create the homelessness crisis we see today.

The conversation covers:

Why rent prices are the strongest predictor of homelessnessThe loss of low-cost housing optionsHow policy decisions shaped today’s crisisWhat “Housing First” means and why it works

This episode connects the dots between housing affordability, public policy, and homelessness.

Sources and Further Reading:

Colburn, Gregg, and Clayton Page Aldern. Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns. University of California Press, 2022.

Burt, Martha R. “Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency Shelter or Affordable Housing?” Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin–Madison, https://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc52b.pdf.

“Brief History of Homelessness in the U.S.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Magazine, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2026, https://magazine.publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/brief-history-homelessness-us.

“Federal Housing Cuts Left Millions Without Homes.” WRAP, 28 July 2023, https://wraphome.org/2023/07/28/federal-housing-cuts-left-millions-without-homes/.

Hartman, Chester, and David Robinson. “Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America.” Shelterforce, 1 May 2004, https://shelterforce.org/2004/05/01/reagans-legacy-homelessness-in-america/.