Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns

By Clayton Page Aldern, Gregg Colburn, Colburn

Book Overview

Using rich and detailed data, this groundbreaking book explains why homelessness has become a crisis in America and reveals the structural conditions that underlie it.

In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many analytical approaches, Colburn and Aldern shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area. Using accessible statistical analysis, they test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city--including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, generosity of public assistance, and low-income mobility--and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country. Instead, housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a far more convincing account. With rigor and clarity, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem explores U.S. cities' diverse experiences with housing precarity and offers policy solutions for unique regional contexts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520383788
• ISBN13: 9780520383784
• Release Date: March 2022
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.2"