For centuries, America has been celebrated as a land of limitless opportunities. A place that has drawn newcomers from all corners of the globe in the hopes of carving out a better, more mobile existence. But what of those who falter? What of those who fail in their pursuits of the American Dream? Better yet, what about those who were never even given a fair shot in the first place?
These Americans have become both painfully visible and tragically invisible. We see them curled on bus benches, stretched across inhospitable concrete, or huddled up in damp, tattered tents in the corners of public parks. And yet, at the same time, we do not truly see them. We view them as urban configurations — as visual pollution that we turn a blind eye to.
Instead of taking action, we tend to broach the idea of “whose responsibility?” Yes, we can volunteer at soup kitchens and donate warm clothes during the winter. Still, we know too well that these efforts are incremental — almost close to useless when faced with the domineering, widespread reality of homelessness in the U.S.
So, rightfully, we turn to our governments. We take that aspect of “protection” outlined in the social contract between citizens as the baseline for providing adequate social safety nets and accessible opportunities. It’s owed to us—but still, the issue persists.
The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness found that over 650,000 people experienced homelessness on any given winter night in January of 2024, a 12.1% increase from the previous year. The average unhoused American lives 26 years shorter on average than their housed counterparts. Meanwhile, over 20 million Americans, disproportionately single-mother households and people of color, live on the precipice of homelessness in the bracket of ‘deep poverty’, meaning that their incomes are at or below 50% of the federal poverty line. Social policy scholars have determined that the vast majority of Americans in this group live on budgets of approximately $2.00 a day.
But how? How has a country built on the promise of social mobility allowed class equality to achieve such a dangerous tipping point? Why has this issue been allowed to fester for so long by our government?
To blame the U.S. government is not far misplaced. Yet, real focus has been detracted from the complexity of the issue due to intense, often inaccurate popular sentiments that poverty only exists because our policymakers allow it to; an assertion that at the core of this extensive problem lies an issue of federal incapacity or corruption.
This assumption does a great disservice to the broader initiative to end homelessness by oversimplifying its multifaceted nature. To attribute fault purely to one entity ignores the many factors contributing to being unhoused, and therefore, the individual life experiences that have caused a great number of Americans to experience homelessness.
But let’s consider a hypothetical scenario in which this was the case: that homelessness in the U.S. could indeed be ascribed solely to a lack of government intervention. With deep pockets and the correct policy choices, homelessness could be eradicated once and for all. Furthermore, suppose that to accomplish this, the federal government allocated $100 billion to combat it specifically. I mean, what issues can’t be solved with money?
In exploring this possibility, I had the privilege of consulting Dr. Larry Rosenthal, a professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Rosenthal’s studies focus on civic engagement and housing, and he co-authored the award-winning book, Our Town: Race, Housing, and the Soul of Suburbia, among other accomplishments and pursuits.
For Rosenthal, to even begin to address the issue, there needs to first be a change in the terminology of “homeless” itself. To him, “homelessness” is an imperfect, “brute force assumption” that consequently ignores the factors playing into what causes someone to be unhoused in the first place. “Who is this person and why are they experiencing this? [Then] we can start thinking about specific opportunities and prevention methods.”
The issue of homelessness is heavily associated with a lack or absence of shelter, and in this way becomes an umbrella term that connects causation to a deficit of some public good, such as subsidized housing. However, we must first acknowledge that while housing insecurity makes up only a portion of homelessness factors, a myriad of others run rampant, such as drug addiction, mental health downfalls, or simple instances of misfortune.
What Rosenthal believes to be the most (and really only) effective course of action, were the government to suddenly decide to put $100 billion into the matter, is to target the individual and their areas of “hardship”. What aspects of our society are driving practices that lead Americans into deep poverty? To identify these sources fully would require a massively expensive data collection initiative by public policy organizations across the U.S. that would cost hundreds of millions. It’s a good thing though that, for this scenario, money is not particularly of great concern.
So let’s say that the U.S. first embarks on this new initiative by first gathering extensive information about what drives homelessness; odds are that factors would be too innumerable to count, thus requiring a massive mobilization of anti-poverty resources to address various socio-economic contributors. For the sake of time, however, let’s highlight one of the most critical issues: housing.
Let’s assume that for their first undertaking, the U.S. federal government gives categorical grants to every state purposed for the construction of public housing units for each one of America’s 650,000 unhoused individuals. Can we be confident that the many unhoused populations in the U.S. would flock to this opportunity for four walls and a roof? Would this then put a quick end to the issue? In a perfect world, yes. But we live far from a perfect world.
To construct enough homes for every American living on the streets creates less of a solution than it does an availability. The simple existence of availability is not sufficient to ensure that it’s used to its fullest extent, especially when we consider what Rosenthal calls a “cultural primacy” that’s increasingly seen among the homeless population. There is, what he deems, “a fight for resources, dignity, and a fight to live outside.”
There’s a plethora of reasons as to why a small chunk of the homeless population would want to remain unhoused. Some prefer the community they form in homeless encampments. Some avoid housing settings due to mental conditions or trauma. “We have to first distinguish between those who want to be housed and those who do not want to be housed.”
For a small yet significant portion of the homeless population, enforced housing would undermine their sense of agency, evoking the state-run institutionalization methods prevalent in the 20th century. “We have to recognize the dignity and autonomy of people’s choices.” The next step of the U.S. federal government in this hypothetical initiative then would be to classify the majority of those who no longer want to be homeless instead of simply everyone living on the streets.
So, instead the U.S. federal government funds 640,000 housing units to not compromise the agency of those who decline assistance. But still, this is not enough. Public housing only provides a physical foundation wherein growth can occur, but does not guarantee that these individuals can gain capital or improve practices of social mobility, nor does it ensure adequate living necessities.
Sufficient public housing is then just a small fix. There would have to be a tremendous allocation of federal dollars to social welfare services of all different varieties. The government could significantly strengthen programs that don’t have income eligibility requirements, like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). Steady access to adequate foods would undoubtedly improve the lives of the U.S. homeless population — but at the end of the day, it’s just food. Its capacity to uplift socially destitute Americans is minimal at best.
According to Rosenthal, cash assistance is the most efficient way to ensure progress in cases of urgency. Homeless people must have the means to find and attain work to build capital, which requires having access to a cell phone or internet, enough money to travel to interviews, or to buy nice clothes to stand out among other candidates. Cash assistance provides a solution — a source of “bridge funding” that can be used to sprout new avenues of opportunity.
Rosenthal argues that these proposed “elastic safety nets” should serve as an “insurance policy” not only against homelessness but also for those in extreme poverty. He emphasizes the need to “assign urgency to what can be temporary spells of homelessness”. With substantial industrial transitions underway given the growing consciousness around climate change, we can predict that job market destabilization and therefore spurs in poverty could likely arise in our future.
So it makes sense to augment the benefits given by already existing federal social welfare programs, such as the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) or TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) to reinforce a basic level of assistance —one that can equip individuals or families with the financial and social resources needed to rebuild their lives and create a path toward stability. But here arises the issue of access. These cash transfer programs like the EITC require tax eligibility to receive benefits, which means having an income — something that most of the unhoused population lacks. As a result, they’re given nothing by the federal government.
But let’s assume in this scenario that, with $100 billion at their disposal, the federal government terminates income eligibility requirements and simply gives cash assistance to those who need it. State governments would distribute such funds amongst their poorest residents, generating a massive stimulus to economic participation and upward mobility. But would this be true across all states?
The four statutory goals that states must abide by when they distribute their portion of the $16.9 billion in federal TANF block grants are as follows: 1) Must help families in need; 2) Must reduce dependency; 3) Prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies; 4) Encourage two-parent families. These last two statutes take on more significance than one would think when it comes to how states spend these block grants.
Oklahoma, for example, the sixth poorest state in the country, uses 5% ($6.9 million) of its federal TANF block grant to fund “pro-marital assistance,” such as marriage and family therapy or routine bonding exercises intended to keep families together. Meanwhile, it only uses 9% ($12.4 million) on cash assistance for its residents. Is this money well spent?
Or let’s examine the most impoverished state out of all 50, Mississippi, which gives only 6% of deep-poverty families (around 3,100 people) TANF assistance—a more than 60% decline since 2006. Is there then a dissonance in how states use that money? Some, like Mississippi and Oklahoma, are putting less emphasis on cash assistance to encourage self-reliance over government-reliance. But clearly, these have not evolved in the ways they need to.
But what if we fix this statewide welfare discord in our hypothetical scenario? What if, instead of releasing block grants with loose guidelines, the federal government constricted them to a categorical one, proposed solely with dispensing direct cash assistance to those most in need? Now will we see an end to homelessness in America?
If we go down the path of relentless cash assistance, the question of agency inevitably arises again. While it’s true that most recipients would use the money wisely, covering essential needs to improve their quality of life, there will always be exceptions. Some might make irresponsible choices — some might gamble funds away, indulge in material excess, or fall into deeper patterns of substance abuse.
Then of course this brings us to the controversies that would surface amongst housed Americans with the idea of “free money”. Why should those with little contribution to society’s economic engine deserve a free pass? What about the American work ethic? To quell these concerns, the federal government would have to make certain that cash assistance is not just guaranteed, but also effective.
Suppose then that, consequently, the U.S. federal government enlarges its welfare bureaucracy — we see an expansion of social caseworkers and oversight methods used to monitor the federal dollars entrusted to America’s most severely poverty-stricken. Should we encourage randomized visits or mandatory periodic check-ins to report employment progress or spending habits? Do we impose monthly caps on benefits to guard against overspending or enforce periodic limits to lessen the odds of financial dependency?
How can we confirm that these pursuits would yield equitable benefits? That is to question whether bias of race, class, or lifestyle practice would obtrude. This means that, in addition to swelling the reach of welfare surveillance methods, the U.S. federal government would need to efficiently vet caseworkers so that equity prevails.
But we must then beg the question: to what extent can the federal government intercede in and control the lifestyle practices of individuals via paternalistic policy implementation — that is to ask, at what point are they too involved? Are they sabotaging or usurping the role of state governments? Are they impairing autonomy through scrupulously supervising, for example, what an individual can and cannot buy, or what job they should or should not take?
At the end of the day, we have to collectively acknowledge that homelessness does not have a one-fix, two-fix, or even twelve-fix solution. Traditional pathways many conceptualize from positions of what Rosenthal deems “armchair sociology” appear to be but meager answers to an intricate, overarching problem.
To hope that our federal government can do away with homelessness through sweeping, top-down initiatives not only assumes a capacity for flawless and equitable execution but also stretches thin the boundaries of states’ rights, premising that every individual should be molded to fit a desired framework of economic and social participation.
Even without financial limits involved, these sweeping approaches to end homelessness are not perfect — we would deeply constrain our understanding of individual agency and push the limits of the federal and state relationship. But this is not to say that this is impossible…
This is more to say that, if we want to take a comprehensive and aggressive outlook in making sure that no Americans sleep on the street — or come close to doing so — it would necessitate a complete upheaval in the way we view government intervention and tolerate social welfare policy. We must do away with the ugly politics and stigmas attached to cash assistance programs — with the idea that one must be of equal diligence to merit “free money”.
So then, the answer lies not with how much money or effort it would hypothetically take to end homelessness, but instead with how ready we are to transform both our outlooks on federal systemic intervention and our collective societal values toward dignity, empathy, and responsibility.
We must reshape our focus from judgment to support, from scarcity to abundance, acknowledging that the real challenge sits with whether or not we have the political will and moral courage to undertake such a transformation.