Building Community Supports For Women And Gender Diverse People Experiencing Homelessness
Conventional thinking leads us to consider the homeless as people who are staying in emergency shelters or living outdoors. Research by the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network and...
Bridging The Home And School Divide
In affordablehousingaction.org's early days, we carried stories about school boards that were trying to get into the housing business because they were having a hard time attracting teachersTry: San Jose...
Pregnant NYC Mums Get A Cash Boost To Help the City’s Next Generations
Every generation's most valuable resource is its offspring. However, there's a growing international problem. However much they may enjoy — even yearn for — children, potential parents simply cannot...
Wanted: Unreported Experiences Of Homelessness In Canada
Canada’s National Housing CouncilRead more about the National Housing Council here. is asking an important question: is there something about the housing experiences of women and gender diverse...
An Ingenious Way To Add To Ontario’s Supply Of Affordable Housing
If I said to you that thousands of deeply affordable homes could become available in Ontario through policy change, you might wonder if my head had come away from...
Too Many Aussie Homeless? Yes! Even More Shocking: The Rate They Die!
It's not just old age or ill health that's killing Australians. A report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare compares the risk of death for people who...
Does Eliminating Homelessness Require More Than ‘Housing First’
"Eradicating homelessness starts with seeing beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to homeless people."
Those words were penned by reporter Kate Holman, writing from Brussels in an article titled Rethinking The Battle...
Broadening The Path Out Of Homelessness
Queer veterans in the United States are on the point of opening a transitional housing project in Seattle called Q'mmunity House.
In the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs...
Tent Encampments: Invaluable Survival For Those Who Have Nothing
It's amazing how much society knows about tent encampments occupied by the unhoused, (or homeless, if you prefer). It seems we apparently know that:
most are drug addicts...
There’s A Worldwide Unhoused Crisis: Can Europe Help North America?
Are you North American and worried about the seemingly unmanageable growth of homelessness in your state or province? Are you thinking perhaps of moving to a kindler, gentler world,...
Unmasking The Consequences Of Homelessness Counts
A.J. Withers has done a great service for people who have questions about using point-in-time counts of people who are homeless. Withers reviewed and analysed 165 reports of homeless...
Building A Housing Path For A Diverse Gang of Folks
Arlene Hache been homeless in the Northwest Territories in Canada. She has also led an urban support centre for families with low incomes for 30 years. For these and...
Tackling Housing Insecurity In Rural N.A. Do Citified Solutions Suit?
A graduate thesis by Barbara Erin Gaede, who is studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides a useful reminder that rural homelessness is different from urban homelessness.
The housed population...
Ending Homelessness Saves Health Costs
Recently, a group of researchers in Toronto compared the health care costs of people who were homeless with people who weren’t.
There’s been enough media coverage about homeless people using...
Cops + Homeless = Poor Bedmates. Yet There They Are Anyway.
Let's set aside convenient fallacies that all cops are sadistic brutes. And that all the unhoused are crazoid drug fiends.
Let's take a much broader view of the participants in...
A Gem Of A Study In Google Scholar
On any given day, a search on Google Scholar for articles about homelessness can bury you with results. With so many studies to choose from, why select an undergraduate...
Social Entrepreneurship: Empty Presumption Or A Belly Full Of Living?
The term "social entrepreneurship" seems to flirt with contradictions, given that "entrepreneurship" is a generally associated with individual self-improvement, while "social" suggests that many may be involved.
So what does...
Building Street Safety Into California’s Affordable Housing Program
"Seniors tend to walk more for recreation than do other demographics, but also do so more slowly given increased reliance on mobility assistive devices like canes, walkers, and wheelchairs."
This...
Homelessness: Timely Advice For Legislators And Voters
In the run up to the US election, there's a lot at stake. Universities might refrain from actively campaigning, but there are other ways to alert voters and candidates...
For Advanced University Students Who Best Survive Supine
Sleeping in a university library is usually an illegal use of educational facilities, quite probably only possible thanks to good-hearted blind eyes of university staff who recognize it's hard...
The Critical Homeless Search for WASH in the Modern City
It's hard to imagine there is anybody on earth who has not experienced a WASHWASH: WAter Sanitation Hygiene event at least once in their life. We...
How Stepping Up Housing Supports Helps Older Adults To Leave Homelessness
Older adults are special. Such a surprise! (Older adult reporting here).
Home may be where the heart is, but as adults who are homeless get older, their changing needs may...
High Profile Self-Governing Homeless Encampment Cleared In Sacramento
Camp Resolution, a homeless encampment in Sacramento, was closed on August 27, 2024. About 50 people were living there when trespassing notices were issued. Residents were offered space in...
Beware, Young Americans! The Supreme Court May Ruin Your Life
Unfortunately, the United States never placed the 'right to adequate housing' in its Constitution. Are you unable to buy or rent even the most basic shelter? Too bad. America...
Homeless/Unhoused: Potato/Potahto, A Spreading Human Catastrophe
The word 'homeless' is undergoing something of a redefinition, replaced by the word 'unhoused' by some people. Is the intent to assist those people who are safely housed to...
How Home Is Made – Voices From The Street
The article linked to this post is a good example of bringing the voice of lived experience to research. The research subjects in the study are young people who...
Health Leadership Central To Ending Homelessness
In London, Ontario, a homeless woman died 10 days before she was due to move into her home. Her death triggered a hunger strike. A short time later, the...
A U.S. Mayor’s Experience With Housing First
This post is inspired by the Mayor of Aurora, Colorado, who undoubtedly sacrificed some comfort to experience Housing First.
According to the Mayor, Housing First is a loser. It plain...
The U.S. Moves On From The Grants Pass Ruling – Part IV
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, what’s next? This post is the final one in a four-part series about...
The U.S. Moves On From The Grants Pass Ruling – Part III
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, what’s next? This post is the third in a four-part series about post-decision...
The U.S. Moves On From The Grants Pass Ruling – Part II
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, what’s next? This post is the second in a four-part series about post-decision...
The U.S. Moves On From The Grants Pass Ruling – Part I
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, what’s next? This post is the first in a four-part series about post-decision...
A Business-Based Approach To Health Care For Patients Who Are Homeless
Private health care insurers have steered clear of enrolling people who are homeless as plan members. Most of the health care for people who are homeless is paid for...
Unhoused Elder Support Wins National Aging Innovation Award
Just who in Multnomah CountyMultnomah County includes Portland and five other cities in the state of Oregon won an award for its innovations to serve older people who...
Aging Out Of Care Into Homelessness At Age 68! A Misprint? Alas, No
OMG, you're so old you don't even know what OMG means! That's a comment that might well be made at an editorial meeting of affordablehousingaction.org — not exactly important...
Historic Roots For Homelessness Among Indigenous People
Native Indians are over-represented amongst the people who are homeless in the United States. This is also the case for indigenous people in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Are...
Homelessness: A European Tragedy Without ‘One Size Fits All’
Euronews.com has posted a story about homelessness in Europe. The article compares the state of homelessness in different countries. The number of people who are homeless is going up...
In Canada, No Legal Need To Bully The Unhoused. It’s Just A Trend
Here in Canada, sleeping beside the United States, we are sometimes cautious in our departures from the latest loony tunes that trickle north across the border.
Canada seems sensibly committed...
A Guide To Supporting Bridges Between Jail And Community Living
Why do we make it so hard to avoid homelessness when we've done time and served out a sentence?
The article linked below is written by C.L. Michel, who draws...
No, I Don’t Want Your Sandwich
If Shakespeare lived in a modern multimedia universe and wrote about extreme poverty instead of kings, would a part of his work product look anything like "Sandwiches?"
Sandwiches is one of...
Devil Drugs Made Them Do It! And Other Unhoused Myths Examined
Fingers in the ears, mouthing 'la. . . la . . .la. . . la', head in the sand. It all adds up to low calorie, high roughage lunch...
Rating A Low Barrier Shelter For Women In Boston
Research by Corinne BeaugardBeaugard is based in the School of Social Work at Boston University. and four colleagues studied a low barrier emergency shelter for women in Boston.
Emergency...
A Royal Intervention To End Homelessness In The UK
More than year ago, the UK's Prince of Wales discussed his special interest in ending homelessnessTry: Prince William: The Next Proud Meddler In United Kingdom Politics? . His Homewards...
Shoalhaven’s ‘Salt Care’ = Helping Out. In Praise of ‘Growing Like Topsy’
Topsy was a pre-teen orphan, a slave girl, who featured in Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin. When asked where she came from, she insisted that she didn't...
Women’s Housing Network Offers New Shelter Standards
The Canadian Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network (the WNHHN) has just published a report recommending National Standards for Emergency Shelters (Emergency Shelter Standards) that integrate human rights and...
Are We Missing The Mark On Homelessness Prevention?
Three academics who are based in Canada have written a thoughtful article about preventing homelessness as it is practised in the global north.
The authors are strong advocates for prevention....
Preventing Youth Homelessness: The Promise And The Practise
This post is about preventing young people from becoming homeless. Preventing homelessness at a young age reduces a person's chances of becoming homeless as an adult. There is substantial...
A Life Of Homelessness Starting At Age 19
What price shelter? It sure as heck doesn't come free. Whether you rent or own what many countries in the world see adequate shelter as an basic human right,...
Ending Homelessness By Staying Open To Possibilities?
The story linked to this post is about the art of the possible.
A lot of the earth is covered with roofs, especially in urban areas. There are multiple roof...
“We Can’t Just Keep Saying Move On, Move On. Instead, Welcome Here.”
Perth, the largest city in Western Australia, acts professionally toward people who are homeless. There is no grab by the scruff of the neck and transport to the city...
Year Round Operation Approved For Specialized ‘Hard Core’ Homeless Shelter In Berlin, Germany
Men with drug addictions are a hard core of homelessness and shelter usage. This community social problem is so common that many prefer to tar everyone who is unhoused...
Caring For Homeless Australians By Caring For Their Pets
Recent good news for the comfortably housed in Singapore, with its world class housing care for its population. After 35 years(!) of trying, residents will be allowed to house...
Hot Or Not? The Importance Of Unhoused Perception In A Heating-Up World
Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, is in a climate region often visited by temperatures both uncomfortable and potentially dangerous. That is a particular threat to those with...
California Unhoused? Vanlords Can Find You Wheel Cheap Housing
Have you found yourself studying a sleek motor home that has appeared in your field of view? Are you tantalized, imagining yourself in the cozy comfort of a home...
Pooped Out Waterways? Don’t Try Blaming It On Homeless Poopsters
From an individual point of view, the above picture reflects something that is practiced regularly in order to maintain good health. From a broader community point of view, it...
Point-In-Time Counts: Tackling Homelessness By The Numbers
Imperfect data collection, difficult to implement, dependant on volunteer labour, not necessarily welcomed by those who are meant to benefit from it, a compulsory practice in order to be...
Right To Housing In A Crisis? Massachusetts May Help Jurisdictions Decide
A conservative U.S. Supreme court is currently considering the circumstances, if any, that would permit an individual American to demand housing as a RIGHT. Since such a right is...
Once Young, Homeless, Queer: A Writer Shares Lessons From A Challenging Lived Life
What helpful advice could you give to a young black adult who had experienced homelessness when young, been raised in a difficult relationship by a single mother, while his...
New York Celebrates First Family Shelter That Puts A Roof And A Woof Overhead
Turns out that in New York City at least, there is no need to educate the people who operate homeless shelters about the health benefits of accommodating pets along...
Yes, Danger & Homeless People. But Who’s Scared – And Who is Scaring?
So let's be honest here. How frightening are unhoused people? Sure, everyone has discomfort, even fear, when some person screams a loud and crazy litany of nonsense from (with...
Rents And Homelessness In The US: Are They Connected?
There is a debate about why people become homeless in the United States. Some people see the rental market as the issue. Others think that personal factors, such as...
Pets, People and Poverty: Caring At Cross Purposes That Doesn’t Need To Happen
A disabled pet, a homeless encampment, well-meaning animal rescue workers, an activist intervention, an overwhelmed new pet owner. Result: two deaths to date, one by euthanasia. These events are...
How To Grow A Housing Crisis – Netherlands Edition
When the UN's special rapporteur on housing published a report about housing in the Netherlands, he was clear that problems facing the country were the result of policy choices...
London, Ontario’s First ‘High Support’ Housing Project Off To A Good Start
A housing project with wraparound supports opened in London, Ontario six months ago. There are 24 residents in the first phase.
The local hospital contributed CDN$2M to the project. The...
Ending Youth Homelessness In Australia – A Matter Of Dollars and Sense
A three-post series explores how we as humans come to grips with social issues. The setting is Australia, where cost-benefit analysis has been applied to two different issues. This...
Hot Air: Two Kinds Of Deadly Poison Killing The Most Vulnerable Unhoused
In a recent publication, The Harvard Political Review details two forms pernicious ill-health that is killing increasing numbers of global citizens including Americans. Climate change is one. The other...
Will Finland Carry Through On Its Plan To End Homelessness By 2027?
The article linked to this post is about Finland's remarkable achievement in reducing homelessness. The success lies in its country-wide adoption of Housing First, an evidence-based program to end...
How Homelessness Squeezes Life Out Of You
Reading the article attached to this post might put you in mind of banging your head against a brick wall.
The article is about a project to calculate mortality rates...
Unhoused? Why Shiver When Warm Emergency Shelters Await You?
City councils bring their own values and concerns to their decision-making. When it comes to the homeless, do those values, well-meaning or no, tend to mirror the opinions of...
Fresno’s Unhoused Saved(?) From Toxic Slop Twixt Cup And Lip
Unhoused people are using the margins of California's waterways for temporary accommodation. Those familiar with historic settlement and land use patterns in North America will appreciate the use of...
When Paving Paradise Means Putting Up A Parking Lot, It’s Not Easy
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot . . ."
Joanie Mitchell's famous words featured 'paradise' destroyed by car culture. Times have changed, and parking lots have earned...
Young and Unhoused. No One Has Fewer Resources To Survive And Prosper
Surely, the problem is beyond managing! We're talking about the growing number of older teenagers and young adults who are unhoused in the United States.
Some no longer have family...
Blink & You Probably Missed It: A U.S. Mega-Shelter
Yes, it gets cold in the Mile-High-City, Denver Colorado. And yes, in Denver, like many American cities, the number of people who have no home is growing. It's not...
Does A Past Life Unhoused Destroy Your Future Parenting Abilities?
Growing up poor culminated in homelessness as a teenager for Ava Truckey. Today, with a child of her own, has her capability as a parent been permanently damaged by...
Video Animated Field Notes For National (Continental?) Unhoused
Here are some images, with accompanying comments, taken during an encampment demolition in Halifax. The next steps, rendered inevitably off-camera, reflect the displacement of former encampment residents towards literally...
Are You Housing-Vulnerable? Who Decides, With What Consequence?
Here's something that may come as a shock to supporters of a universal human right to adequate housing. In a certain large American city, when it comes to to...
Annual Count: How Many Unhoused? Who’s At ‘Home’? Who’s Just Visiting?
Homelessness counts are an increasingly commonplace means by which cities and nations attempt to determine the costs to handling growing numbers of people who pursuing a precarious existence on...
Irrational Fears About Homeless Werewolves That Prowl A Nation’s Streets
The unhoused! Would you be more accepting of them if they weren't so horrible? But then, perhaps you should pat yourself on the back. You are already cool, calm...
Owners and Unhoused Share Community Fears But Not Solutions
Hey homies! How come your schemes to solve the growing community homeless problems keep falling flat?
It may well be because you won’t stop listening to yourselves, even though you...
Carrying The Torch For Ending Homelessness In The United Kingdom
Every country creates its own responses to homelessness. The Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (the Kerslake Commission) is one of many initiatives in the United Kingdom. The...
Aging? Be Afraid! Your Day Of Financial Reckoning Has Been Miscalculated
In a world of self-reliance, the Baby Boom (postwar) generation is aging out self-care. The future has arrived.
Your retirement planning, if it even exists, was locked in during an...
Unable To Afford Housing? Easy And Cheap To Brand Them Loonies On The Loose
The year 1984 has come and gone. The novel of the same name lives on as a possible expression of a variety of repugnant futures. Currently, we are looking...
Universal Basic Income: Opportunities For Recipients And The Community?
Wales is in the middle of a pilot project that aims to help young adults who have been wards of the crown to avoid homelessness. Guaranteeing a basic income...
Homelessness: Nothing To Fear Except Poor Leaders?
Modern Western countries are slipping rapidly towards a housing crisis unmatched since the Great Depression in the 1930's. How might we take heart from this circumstance, particularly those less...
Munching Cheez-Its: Tent Encampment Sweeps As A Spectator Sport
54-year-old Tracy Bennett's story plays out from the other side of the road in San Diego, courtesy of a Tucson Sentinel article. Tracy munches Cheez-Its with a couple of...
An Account Of Housing Support For People With Mental Illness
Imagine that you are a mental health worker in Trondheim, Norway (population 210,000). With your mental health colleagues, you began a pilot project in 2018. You asked 34 residents...
What Does Poking In Bushes Tell Us About The Number Of Unhoused People In The US?
In answer to the question posed in the headline — 'point in time' counts tell us not a lot about absolute numbers of people experiencing homelessness. That's because unleashing...
EU Local Communities Can’t Manage Unhoused Youth. Can Any Community?
Affordablehousingaction.org has been advocating that homelessness must be treated as a national war, not a penny ante local squabble to be solved by local activists and learner politicians knocking...
NIMBY? Lower Sackville Nova Scotia Neighbours Promote Pure YIMBY Towards The Homeless
An event is taking place in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, which is quite extraordinary in North America. That community is largely one of single family homes — a suburb...
If The Housing Shoe Fits, Let Them Wear It — Scottish No-Brainer?
Unfortunately, it's not a no-brainer in Scotland or anywhere else.
If there was ever a definition of 'churning,' a blog post by Jimmy Black offers up a useful example. Black...
United Kingdom Drug Fiends Rave In Lifestyle Tents: Real Homes Are For Sissies!
Some believe that tents are a last resort for those trying to survive inclement weather in the flimsiest possible form of shelter from the elements — all they can...
Portugues Ocupas: Haven’t Got Squat? Squat Is What You Get
Portugal is undergoing an exercise familiar to Americans who followed recent events by West Coast activists: illegal(?) squatting in unoccupied housing. That story focused on the actions of moms...
Complexities In Data Collection – Small Choices With Big Effects
The National Alliance to End Homelessness (The Alliance) is thinking about the data it collects about homelessness in the United States. The Alliance's data feeds into annual reports to...
UK Homeless Teens: Right To Adequate Housing? The Devil Is In The Details
It's easier to pay lip service to 'adequate housing' if you can drag the costs down. The issue arises for a government tasked with arranging a young person's care....
Updated – Architects Design Buildings To Welcome People Shunned By Society
In July this year, we published a story about trauma informed architecture. Now we have another. Why so soon?
This time, there is another linked article that adds new information...
How Long Before Persistent, Growing Homelessness Demands A Final Solution?
When your country needs housing, it is both conventional as well as common to build houses for people who need them. A substantial number of the world's countries are...
Are American Schools Really Trying To Educate Children Who Are Homeless?
According to a US report from the Center For Public Integrity,
"The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which protects the educational rights of homeless students, requires schools to identify and...
Homeless: To Pee Or Not To Pee? That’s Not the Question. It’s About The Poop!
These days, all North American cities have more and more homeless people in residence . . . Except they haven't got an actual house to reside in (of course...
Housing, Land And Property Rights In South Africa And Canada
This is part of a series that looks at housing and homelessness in South Africa and Canada. It might be a source of inspiration/direction for housing efforts in either...
Another Good Result For Housing First, This Time In England
Manchester's Mayor Andy Burnham has good news for the people in his city, where the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation is going down. The city is also...