When people do not have access to affordable and stable housing, they may be forced to live in inadequate or unsafe conditions. This lack of suitable housing can be due to various reasons, including the high cost of rent or the lack of affordable options in certain areas. The cost of living and many other contributing factors to homelessness has increased the number of people living without stable housing and the resources available can't keep up with this increase. While the issues around how many people experience a lack of housing have gone up, the resources available for housing have not. The article Homeless in America article by German Lopez, discusses how the demand for housing does not equate to the supply of housing available. A large barrier impacting homelessness is having a stable living environment itself but when factors such as the price for housing go up with the resources available for housing becoming more and more constrained, this becomes a tougher barrier to cross.
To combat this barrier that is impacting
so many individuals is an approach called “Housing First”. Housing First is an
approach focused on homelessness, that emphasizes giving permanent houses to
people who are experiencing houselessness; ending their homelessness and
serving as a foundation from which they may improve their personal lives. There
have been many individuals impacted by Housing First-focused programs, many of
which highlighted the important foundation that housing provided in order for
these individuals to address any physical/mental health issues they were
experiencing. For more information regarding Housing First, there are a few
resources regarding this at the end of this post.
Cited sources
and more resources regarding Housing First:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/briefing/homelessness-america-housing-crisis.html
https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/
https://fobh.org/who-we-are/success-stories/
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