Examining Structural Determinants and Housing Policy Drivers of Unsheltered Homelessness in the United States

• In Event: 20852 - Poverty

Abstract

Spurred in part by escalating housing cost burden –– unequally distributed according to obstinate inequalities by race and class and undeterred by a straining social safety net –– sociological studies of stratification have turned from their historical focus on spatial and racial inequalities in poverty and unemployment to center inequalities vis-a-vis housing and homelessness. However, unsheltered homelessness, the most extreme form of housing insecurity, has received relatively little attention; extant research on the burgeoning housing crisis focuses mainly on less severe forms of housing insecurity. We argue that unsheltered homelessness is a uniquely harmful and increasingly common consequence of stratification, disproportionately affecting people of color. In this study, we analyze the spatial patterns and structural determinants of unsheltered homelessness. We also scrutinize two key federal policy interventions that may reduce levels of, and disparities in, unsheltered homelessness: Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) and traditional public housing. In particular, we explore the basic patterns of levels and change in unsheltered homelessness in the U.S., their variation across regions and the responsible structural factors, the explanatory effect of public housing and HCVs, and the potential for mediation via reduced region-wide average rent levels. We employ multilevel models and two decades of spatially-disaggregated data for 330 U.S. regions from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on unsheltered homelessness rates, public housing, and HCVs – as well as regional structural conditions, drawn from the American Community Survey. Preliminary findings reveal grim trends in unsheltered homelessness from 2010-2024, with substantial regional variation, which is partially explained by classic structural factors including poverty and unemployment. Regional levels of public housing and, to a lesser extent, HCV concentration, appear to depress rates nonlinearly, with diminishing marginal returns. These effects are not mediated by area-level rents, which exert positive but largely independent effects on unsheltered homelessness.

Authors

• Jared N. Schachner, University of Southern California

• Matthew Gannon, Johns Hopkins University