The Economic Consequences of Homelessness in The US

On June 11, 2014 the 100,000 Homes Campaign in the United States, launched in 2010
to "help communities around the country place 100,000 chronically homeless people
into permanent supportive housing" announced that it reached its four-year goal of
housing 100,000 chronically homeless
people nearly two months before its
July 29 deadline.
New York Times journalist David
Bornstein summarized key elements of
the 100,000 Homes Campaign that
campaign leaders attribute to its
success. This included learning
individual homeless people's "name
and need" by mobilizing volunteers to
go very early in the morning to check on
them, establishing a "vulnerability
index" so they could prioritize certain
homeless people and "bring housing
advocates and agency representatives
together to streamline the placement
processes, and share ideas about how
to cut through red tape."
Application to Family Homelessness
The Housing First methodology was
initially developed in 1988 in Los
Angeles, California, to address an
increase in family homelessness. The
basic methodology helps homeless
families to relocate from shelters and
transitional housing directly into
permanent rental housing in the
community at-large as quickly as
possible, with home-based case
management support for a traditional
period of time. In other words, the
services traditionally being provided in
transitional housing were instead
provided to families after they had been assisted in relocating to permanent housing at
rents they could afford. This was a major innovation in the field at the time. The basic
premise was that families were more responsive to interventions and support from a
stable permanent housing base than while still homeless. In the 2009 HEARTH Act, the
Housing First approach to ending homelessness was codified into law. Housing First
programs for families differ dramatically from Housing First for the chronically homeless,
as children are involved. Beyond Shelter's leadership promoted this new approach
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