I read an article on NPR today, U.S. homelessness jumps to another record high, amid affordable housing shortage : NPR. Apparently, there were more than 770,000 homeless people in the US in January, when the survey was done. And that’s probably an undercount. More than three quarters of a million people are living in shelters or on the street. That’s disgusting.
The article lists three main causes of the homelessness crisis. First is the extremely high cost of housing. Second is the high level of migrants. According to the article, areas with high migration had roughly double the rates of family homelessness. I’ll talk more about this later. Third is climate change. The article doesn’t specifically say climate change, but it does say natural disasters. It uses the Maui wildfires as an example of a natural disaster that forced people from their homes into shelters.
There are two bits of good news according to the article. There are fewer homeless veterans, and the number of homeless people has probably dropped since June when Biden implemented caps on asylum seekers. Well, the news about veterans is good. The news about asylum seekers is mixed, at best. It’s good that there are fewer homeless, but we should be accepting more asylum seekers, not less.
That’s a brief description of the article. I encourage you to read it for yourself. Now I want to make some comments.
First, blaming migrants and asylum seekers for the homeless problem is outrageous. Denying asylum seekers is just cruel. And migrants in general are both good for our culture and good for the economy. One thing this country has in spades is room. We can make room for anyone who wants to be here.
Second, the cost of housing is preposterous. As my friend Jamil wrote about here, no one should be priced out of a home. If an average person can’t afford a mortgage or rent, that’s a systemic problem. Housing is a basic necessity. All basic necessities should be within reach of everyone. The fact that housing is an investment product just shows how backwards this country is.
Third, climate change is here. We’re past the prevention stage and into the mitigation stage. Part of that mitigation is to stop building in places that are in danger from natural disasters. If that means we have to stop building in Florida, so be it. We don’t want housing to be precarious. We want it to be stable.
Fourth, Trumpian policies will make things worse. Many states and cities have passed laws prohibiting sleeping outside to target homelessness. The Supreme Court recently ruled that these laws are valid. It is essentially criminalizing homelessness. Talk about blaming the victims. It’s truly sick.
Fifth, something as simple as zoning has a lot to do with homelessness but isn’t even mentioned in the article. Too many places have minimum lot sizes for homes. They zone in such a way that multifamily homes are not allowed, including apartment complexes and condominiums. Or they keep land vacant in the hopes of getting commercial buyers. All of this artificially keeps the prices high by keeping supply low. It’s despicable.
Those are just some of my takes. The number of homeless people in the United States should be zero. Anything higher than that is a gross injustice. Housing is a basic necessity. Let’s treat it as such.
