Reducing the stigma of homelessness will accelerate solutions centring housing, not handcuffs

by Matt Gannon 

Nicole called her apartment ‘a little slice of heaven.’ Nestled into the shoreline of a New Hampshire lake, its waterfront view welcomed her home every evening after completing shifts at her two jobs. Until she was served a no-fault eviction notice, she thought she would never leave.

Given just 30 days to move, Nicole packed toys and blankets into cardboard boxes. Facing rental vacancy rates below one percent, she and her two young kids lived out of their rusted red van. With little respite from the summer heat, the family was shunted from parking lot to parking lot while they searched for available and affordable housing. They showered at truck stops, cooled off in the public library, and re-stocked food at local pantries. Despite dozens of calls, no landlord would accept their widely stigmatized federal Housing Choice Voucher. It took three months before the county provided them with temporary accommodation for the coming winter.

Housing insecurity and homelessness constitute symptoms of societal inequality in the United States. Researchers have likened the American housing landscape to a game of musical chairs with skewed rules: there simply isn’t enough affordable housing for everyone, and the people who end up without it are those who start with the fewest advantages. Indeed, the confluence of skyrocketing rents and stagnant wages renders housing unaffordable for half of American renters. People of color bear the brunt of this rent burden, and the persistent racial wealth gap disproportionately amplifies Black Americans’ risk of eviction. Moreover, people affected by the criminal legal system, people with significant physical disabilities, and people exiting the foster care system suffer disproportionately high risks of experiencing homelessness.

Beyond this, as Nicole’s protracted apartment search demonstrates, homelessness is prolonged and exacerbated by the stigmatization of people experiencing it. Conceptualized as social rejection based on stereotyping, stigma worsens the employment, health, and housing outcomes of unhoused people. Potential employers are reluctant to hire candidates living in emergency shelters. Unhoused patients report limited and delayed access to primary care due to discrimination. Furthermore, many landlords refuse prospective tenants who rely on governmental subsidies, precluding many low-income applicants with experiences of homelessness from obtaining stable housing. 

In addition to making it more difficult for someone to overcome housing insecurity, the stigmatization of unhoused people discourages support for the systemic changes needed to end homelessness in general. Researchers have long contended that the solution to homelessness is increasing access to affordable housing and providing services in the meantime. However, NIMBY opposition to the construction of affordable housing consistently stalls essential projects, despite a dearth of evidence that such infrastructure deflates property values. Furthermore, residents routinely oppose the construction of emergency shelters in their neighborhoods, citing unfounded fears about people who might use such vital facilities. In short, the stigma of homelessness impedes the implementation of both long-term and stop-gap housing policy solutions. Indeed, “[w]e will struggle to make the structural investments needed to end it,” housing researchers Gregg Colburn and Clay Aldern conclude in their book Homelessness is a Housing Problem, until “public perceptions of homelessness change.” 

The stakes are life itself. Studies repeatedly conclude that experiencing homelessness deteriorates individuals’ physical and mental health. Indeed, people who have experienced homelessness are three times more likely to die prematurely, with an average lifespan 12 years shorter than the general U.S. population.  
Despite this urgency, policymakers repeatedly push people experiencing homelessness out of parks and out of mind rather than pursuing evidence-based, inclusive, and effective solutions. Per the National Homelessness Law Center, criminalization is sweeping the nation: nearly three-quarters of American cities bulldoze tent encampments, and half restrict living in vehicles. 

Researchers warn that cities can’t police their way out of homelessness; indeed, compounding fines render it harder to secure a tenancy, and serving time in jail for unpaid penalties exacerbates housing insecurity. However, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which held that cities can punish people for sleeping on public property with as little as a blanket, advocates worry that proliferating criminalization threatens to codify the stigma of homelessness. 

In sum, the stigmatization of unhoused people deepens housing inequality, exacerbating the consequences of homelessness and inhibiting the implementation of evidence-based policies to end it. Reducing this stigma will pave the way for sweeping solutions that center housing, not handcuffs. 

The road forward is clear: in order to enact the systemic changes required to end homelessness for good, we must concomitantly work to end the stigmatization of unhoused people. In the short term, cities can provide shelter via low-barrier, no-judgment Housing First approaches, and ––  to help set the stage for more sweeping solutions –– advocates can center the structural causes of homelessness, debunking the false narrative that individual behavior determines housing status. In the long-term, boosting the construction of housing and ensuring that it remains affordable via vouchers, tax credits, and rent caps would go a long way in preventing people from experiencing housing insecurity in the first place. Simultaneously, laws prohibiting source-of-income discrimination, which currently exist in only a handful of states, would prevent landlords from refusing to lease properties to people reliant on such subsidies. 
​
Inequitable housing policies made it possible for Nicole’s family to experience homelessness, and stigma made it harder to overcome. To prevent more families from falling into prolonged homelessness, affordable housing must be multiplied and the stigmatization of unhoused people must be supplanted by empathetic action.