THIRD WORLD U$A

Biden administration: We bent the curve on homelessness. Here's how we made progress.

Jeff Olivet
Tue, February 21, 2023 

Until you turn off the faucet, a bathtub will never be empty. Until we prevent homelessness from happening in the first place, it will not end in the U.S.

That’s why the Biden-Harris administration’s new homelessness plan goes further than previous federal efforts to prevent homelessness before it happens.

The faucets that contribute to homelessness are criminal justice systems that punish people who have nowhere to live but the streets and make it harder for people to get housing and jobs, foster care systems that fail young people when they age out, health care systems that don’t provide insurance and treatment to all who need it, and a housing supply that doesn’t provide enough homes that people can afford. Unfortunately, there are many more faucets.

We know how to get people out of homelessness. Every year – thanks in part to the long-standing, bipartisan “Housing First” policy – the United States helps more than 900,000 people get back into homes. But for every person who gets housing, another loses housing.

Increase in homelessness is starting to slow

After the Bush and Obama administrations embraced a Housing First policy, homelessness in America began to decline. But in 2016, that progress stopped, and homelessness rapidly rose in the years that followed.

Fortunately, we have begun to slow the rapid rise in homelessness – and we did it during a global pandemic and economic crisis. The number of Americans without a home remained largely flat from 2020 to 2022, proving that we can make progress even during the most difficult times.

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With billions of dollars in new funding from the Biden-Harris administration, communities flattened the curve by investing in evidence-based solutions. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, which included one of the largest-ever investments in homelessness.

Through these investments, we have reduced homelessness among veterans, families and youth, and turned our attention to eliminating encampments and other forms of unsheltered homelessness.

But flattening the curve is not enough.

The Biden administration’s new plan, “All In,” aims to reduce homelessness 25% by 2025 and charts a course to end it altogether. Our plan lays out dozens of strategies and hundreds of actions to urgently address basic needs of people in crisis, expand housing and support, and build better systems to prevent homelessness – with an evidence-based, all-hands-on-deck approach based on what people who have experienced homelessness say they need and want.

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This is an ambitious goal, but homelessness is a life-and-death crisis. Mayors, housing and service providers, and citizens who see their neighbors on the streets know that people are dying from drug overdoses and untreated mental illness, from extreme heat and cold that homes would have protected them from, and from health problems that are worsened by living outside.

Homelessness is a tragedy – not a crime. Let’s treat it like one.

Housing is start of the path to better quality of life

At the root of our plan is the understanding that without a home, every other aspect of a person’s life suffers. How can you improve your health when a good night of sleep is so crucial to it? How can you get a job without a place to store all the documents you need to apply? How can you stay out of jail when having a home is a condition of your parole?

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Housing is the immediate solution to homelessness – but not the only solution. We must also help people fix their health, employment, legal and other problems that made them lose their homes in the first place.

In a nation where so many live paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness, the Biden administration’s plan will work to make systems work for the people who have been left behind. With rents rising – even a full-time salary on minimum wage can’t cover a two-bedroom in any state – and with a shortage of 7 million homes, we will build more housing and make it more affordable.

With people of color more likely to experience homelessness, we will dismantle systems that discriminate against them. We also will make health care (including mental health and substance use treatment), job training and other support easier to get.

I want to live in a country where no one experiences the tragedy and indignity of homelessness – and everyone has a safe, stable, accessible and affordable home. I believe our plan can make that happen.

I ask those who seek to ascribe blame for the crisis of homelessness to join us in finding common ground, continuing to invest in effective solutions and working creatively to fix systems and prevent homelessness before it happens.

Jeff Olivet is executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which works with the White House, 19 federal agencies and communities to set and coordinate the nation’s homelessness strategy.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US homeless population surged under Trump. Here's how we slowed it