Housing-Focused Responses to Unsheltered Homelessness

Communities across the country are grappling with how to respond to unsheltered homelessness. The Alliance’s Homelessness Research Institute has created a series of case studies that aim to uplift various communities’ housing-focused approaches. Each of the four communities featured in this series are implementing successful strategies to reduce unsheltered homelessness by providing and expediting permanent housing access to people living outside. As some leaders seek to punish people for struggling to find a stable home, these case studies point to long-term solutions that can end unsheltered homelessness and build more prosperous communities for everyone. Policies that jail, ticket and otherwise punish people for experiencing homelessness may temporarily hide homelessness but they will not end it  

Researchers should continue to explore best practices in other communities and barriers — like the criminalization of homelessness — that make it harder for unsheltered people to access permanent housing.