HUD’s new direction on homelessness is missing the most important facts

I have worked in Housing First for more than two decades and co-authored a book about its origins and trajectory into federal policy. I have also watched homelessness grow into the crisis we see today and produce some of the estimates that the Department of Housing and Urban Development uses each year as its measuring stick to argue that Housing First has failed.

The numbers are bad and reflect the crisis that Americans see. The diagnosis offered in HUD Secretary Scott Turner’s recent op-ed, however, is incomplete.

The administration is right that people experiencing homelessness need more than a set of keys. Stable housing matters, but so does access to mental health care, substance use treatment, and the support systems that help people rebuild their lives. Most everyone agrees on this. But any serious assessment would also note there is not enough affordable housing in the country, which went unmentioned in Turner’s piece.

According to HUD’s own reporting, federal housing assistance reaches fewer than one in four households that qualify for help, leaving over 6 million Americans who need rental assistance on a waiting list. This reflects political choices that predate Housing First by decades.

Congress also used to fund public housing construction: In 1979, 55,000 new units were included in the budget, a number reduced to zero just five years later. Federal housing assistance has since fallen........

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