What Solves Homelessness?
Boosting Income and Public Benefits
Improving income opportunities and increasing investments in public benefits is essential to bridging the gap between wages and the rising cost of housing. By ensuring people have access to better incomes and robust public assistance, we can make significant strides toward ending homelessness.
Closing the Income Gap to End Homelessness
When wages and benefits don’t keep pace with housing costs, the risk of homelessness grows. Improving income opportunities and public benefits is critical to helping vulnerable populations afford stable housing.
$
The federal minimum wage in the United States
%
The percentage of minimum wage workers aged 25 or older
The number of hours the average minimum-wage worker in the U.S must work (2.4 full time jobs) to afford a one-bedroom rental home at the fair market rent.
%
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program now reaches less than one-third of the share of poor families that it did when welfare reform was enacted in 1996.
Providing stable employment opportunities prevents individuals from risk of homelessness.
Ensuring a Living Wage for all Workers
At $7.25, the federal minimum wage is insufficient for anyone to live on, leaving far too many people housing insecure and at risk of homelessness. Keeping people from homelessness means paying them enough to maintain their housing.
Advancing Robust Workforce Development Opportunities
Providing jobseekers and underemployed individuals with the resources to gain skills and secure living-wage jobs is key. Workforce opportunities should target individuals with the greatest barriers to employment, including people from marginalized communities and returning citizens.
Supporting people when they lose jobs, face discrimination, or are exploited is essential for preventing housing insecurity.
Combat Employment Discrimination
Workforce protections are key to keeping vulnerable people protected from discrimination in hiring, promotion, wages, and benefits, including people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated individuals, BIPOC and LGBTQ people, and undocumented workers.
Workforce Supports for Parents and Caregivers
Reliable and robust social supports like childcare and caregiving assistance — including time off for workers who need to take time off for caregiving and pregnancy — help people secure and maintain steady employment and housing.
Legal Protections for Exploited Workers
Fighting labor exploitation and providing legal support ensures marginalized workers can earn a living wage without fear of discrimination or unfair labor practices.
From strengthening income supports to expanding workforce opportunities, these targeted strategies can make a tangible difference in the fight against homelessness.
Streamlining and Expanding Access for Public Benefits
Public benefits are a lifeline for the most vulnerable members of our communities, including young children, people with disabilities, and older adults. But burdensome applications processes and limited access discourage some from applying and reject others from receiving the benefits for which they are eligible.
Increase Tax Protections for Low Income Households
Protections such as the Low Income Child Tax Credit and earned income tax credit have lifted millions of families out of poverty. They provide needed income to parents to address immediate needs and plan for the future.
Expand Access to Emergency Rental Assistance
Short-term financial aid for families on the verge of housing loss can prevent evictions and offer critical support for regaining stable housing.
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