Learn about homelessness
Short, plain-language explanations of what causes homelessness, what works to reduce it, and how to help. Sources and citations are linked inline where they exist.
Foundations
The actual causes of homelessness
Homelessness is not caused by personal failure. It is caused, overwhelmingly, by the gap between what housing costs and what people earn — plus everything that pushes people toward that gap.
3 min read
Common myths about homelessness — and what's actually true
The most repeated claims about homelessness are usually wrong. Here are the ones that get in the way of helping.
3 min read
The three types of homelessness
Homelessness isn't one experience. Understanding the difference between transitional, episodic, and chronic homelessness changes how you think about who needs what.
2 min read
Where unhoused people tend to be — and why
Understanding the geography of unsheltered homelessness, for outreach workers, volunteers, and curious neighbors.
3 min read
Populations
Asylum-seekers, migrants, and the homeless shelter system
The 2022–2025 increase in migrant arrivals to US and Canadian cities strained the homelessness systems they overlapped with. The dynamic is more nuanced than most coverage suggests.
5 min read
College student homelessness: the invisible problem
Roughly 1 in 10 US college students will experience homelessness during their studies. Most never tell anyone. Here's what's happening — and what helps.
5 min read
Domestic violence: the pathway to homelessness
Leaving an abusive partner is the single most common cause of homelessness for women and children. The system that exists to help has specific entry points worth knowing.
5 min read
Homelessness by population: who is affected, and how
Veterans, youth, families, women, LGBTQ+ people, and Indigenous people experience homelessness in distinct ways and need different kinds of help.
3 min read
Mental illness and homelessness: it's not what you think
Most people picture mental illness as the cause of most homelessness. The reality is more nuanced — and more solvable — than that intuition suggests.
6 min read
Re-entry: avoiding the prison-to-shelter pipeline
Being released from incarceration without housing lined up is one of the most reliable on-ramps to homelessness. The 72 hours after release are decisive — here's the playbook.
5 min read
Rural homelessness: the invisible majority of geography
Most US and Canadian land area is rural, and most counties have very few formal homeless services. Rural homelessness exists at urban rates per capita — it just looks different.
5 min read
Senior homelessness — the fastest-growing population
The number of adults over 50 experiencing homelessness has grown faster than any other group over the last fifteen years. The reasons — and the responses — are different from younger homelessness.
4 min read
Solutions
Encampments: why sweeps don't work, and what does
Encampment sweeps are the most common municipal response to visible homelessness, and one of the least effective. The evidence on what actually clears encampments — humanely — is unusually clear.
5 min read
Homelessness and policing: the criminalization debate
Most US cities now criminalize public sleeping in some form. The evidence on what enforcement does — and doesn't do — to homelessness is unusually clear.
4 min read
What actually works: Housing First and the evidence
Two decades of research point in the same direction. Get people housed first, then work on everything else. It is cheaper and more humane than the alternative.
4 min read
Action
Free showers, charging, Wi-Fi: a daily survival guide
Practical answers to the daily questions of being unhoused: where to shower, where to charge a phone, where to use Wi-Fi, where to keep food, where to store stuff.
7 min read
Homelessness in your hometown: how to understand your local numbers
A short guide to finding out what's actually happening in the city you live in — how many people, who they are, what the city is doing, and where the leverage points are.
5 min read
How to talk to someone experiencing homelessness
A short, practical guide for the moments when you pass someone on the street and want to do the human thing.
3 min read
What to do if you become homeless
A practical step-by-step for the first 48 hours, the first week, and the path back to housing. Written for the person facing it, not the people watching from outside.
7 min read
Pets and homelessness: keeping them with you
Roughly 1 in 4 unhoused people has a pet. Many refuse shelter to stay with them. The pet-friendly options exist — here's what to know.
4 min read