Space to Govern:Federal and Municipal Policy Responses to Homelessness in the US

• In Event: Neighborhoods, Housing and Local Politics

Abstract

Increased media and scholarly attention to the lack of affordable housing and the persistence of visible homelessness across the United States, particularly in cities experiencing economic growth driven by the tech sector, has brought renewed attention to questions of economic inequality, marginalization, and extreme poverty in wealthy economies.

As levels of unsheltered homelessness have continued to rise and new vulnerabilities to homelessness emerge amidst the affordable housing crisis facing major U.S. cities and continued attacks on the welfare state, the treatment of homeless populations and the policy responses of cities to this crisis have gained renewed attention in the United States and beyond. The apparent failure of cities to adequately address rising levels of homelessness undermines trust in local governments’ ability to govern. However, while cities are responsible for the provision and administration of homelessness services, municipal policy responses to homelessness are shaped and, in part, made by actors at different levels of government. The federal response to homelessness thus crucially informs local policy initiatives to addressing this crisis. Municipal governments are constrained in what policy options are available to them, yet are also able to collaborate with other municipal entities as well as with other levels of government (state, federal) in designing policy solutions. Cities across the United States have increasingly employed similar policy approaches responding to homelessness in spite of existing differences in traditional local mechanisms of providing aid to the poor.

This paper traces the development of the federal response to homelessness since its re-emergence on the policy agenda in the 1980s in order to better understand policy developments at the local level. Considering both the broader policy responses to homelessness as well as the emergence of punitive measures in managing visible homelessness, this project sets out to understand what shapes policy making in the multi-level system of governance in the United States.

Author

• Laura Isabell Kettel