The Economic Consequences of Homelessness in The US

through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. In the first four
years of the program, which began in 2012, SSVF served more than 238,000 veterans,
and 87% of those who received homelessness prevention assistance were able to
access or maintain permanent housing at the end of the assistance, which lasted 96
days on average. More than half of veterans served through SSVF have one or more
disabling conditions, and most (70%) earned less than 30% of the median income in
their area upon program entrance. The SSVF program achieves successful
homelessness prevention by providing time-limited cash assistance combined with
targeted service-intensive interventions to support access to employment and benefits.
The VA has shown that limited-cost, short-term prevention efforts can be successful in
regaining housing stability, and further research should explore the applicability of such
findings to other subpopulations.
Evaluations of programs aiming to prevent homelessness have yielded mixed results. In
New York City, one such program was shown to reduce new shelter entries by 5% to
11% on average. Shelter length of stay, while not typically a targeted outcome of
prevention programs, nevertheless does not appear to be effected by prevention efforts.
HUD’s Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program was discontinued in
2012 after demonstrating only mixed success. However, the lack of any increase in
homelessness from 2009 to 2012 during an economic recession in the United States
has been attributed to large-scale increases in prevention funding. In addition, many
lessons were learned from the implementation of that program, and these lessons have
led to a better understanding of how to generate and measure program impact. Other
countries, such as England and Germany, have documented greater success in
homeless prevention programs; however, these countries have more widely available
housing subsidies, greater access to public or social housing, and more flexible cash
assistance.
Constructive Alternatives to The Criminalization of Homelessness: Many states
and municipalities continue to pass laws that criminalize behaviors associated with
homelessness, such as sharing food and loitering. While some of these laws have been
struck down, many more are taking up costly resources to enforce and are ineffective in
reducing homelessness or the criminalized behavior they are intended to deter.
Internationally, human rights courts and national constitutional courts are increasingly
recognizing a fundamental right to housing and pursuing housing-related solutions to
these behaviors, rather than a criminal remedy. As a result, it is critical for communities
in the United States to adopt constructive alternatives to criminalizing basic lifesustaining
activities that individuals must perform in public spaces if there is no shelter
or housing available.
The housing-focused solutions detailed above are critical to reducing the behaviors that
these laws are designed to deter. Individuals and families who have a safe, permanent
place to live will no longer need to sleep in public or be targeted as loitering. However,
while pursuing housing is the ultimate goal, decriminalizing the life-sustaining behaviors
of people experiencing homelessness and recognizing their fundamental human rights
are essential. Money spent on enforcement of these laws could instead be spent on
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