Homelessness is a Housing Problem
How Structural Factors Explain U.S Patterns

This book seeks to answer the question: why is homelessness much more common in some cities than in others? They find that only two factors are significant: 1) overall rents and 2) rental vacancy rates. Where housing is scarce and rents are high, lots of people are homeless. Where rents are lower, fe......more

Excellent book. I work in affordable housing and thought this was a great overview of modern homelessness and potential policy responses. Despite being familiar with most of the stats and conclusions, I still enjoyed the read. Every time I tell people what I do, they inevitably tell me about a recen......more

One day in January each year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development conducts its Point in Time estimate of how many homeless people are in the US. Summary of the results are shown below. The natural question from looking at the data is: Why do some cities have more homeless than others? Th......more

As the title says, you can shut your reactionary ass up every time you try to blame homelessness solely on individual favors like poor choices or, if you’re a Republican, solely on the loony libs of the Democratic Party. Homelessness in America, and variations in the rate of homelessness across diff......more

Essential reading for anyone in the Puget Sound! An incredibly well-researched dive into the causes of (and myths surrounding) homelessness. The thesis is extremely clear (it’s the title, y’all!) and there are scads of supporting data visualizations and statistics. The book deftly debunks claims lik......more