Why are people homeless?

Tonight, nearly 800,000 Americans won’t have a building to sleep in.
Homelessness, or the lack of a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, is worse now in the United States than it's ever been, despite the country being RICHER, at least on paper (hold up paper) than it's ever been.

Nearly every American agrees that homelessness sucks. It’s a big freaking problem that needs to solved, like…yesterday. So how do we solve it? Well any solution begins with first looking at why people are homeless to begin with.

Here are the three main reasons why people are homeless. Let’s start with the BIGGEST reason…

          1. Housing is way too expensive
Home prices in the United States have more than DOUBLED over the past 20 years. There’s simply not enough low-cost housing in the country. Outdated zoning laws, too much speculation on land as an investment, and rising construction costs have made it freaking tough to build new homes. In most American cities, rent has skyrocketed, and

          2. Americans don’t make enough money
Since the 1980s, healthcare, child care, higher education, and housing prices have all increased at a MUCH higher rate than wages. The median wage in the United States has gone up 19% since 1985, adjusted for inflation.^1 But the average price of an American home has gone up 407% since 1985 holy moly.^2 Before the 1980s, most Americans spent less than 20% of their income on housing. Today nearly half of Americans spend more than 30% of their income on housing.^3 Holy moly again.
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          3. A shrinking social safety net
The social safety net is government-provided programs to help vulnerable folks in society, and the United States of America has been cutting the social safety net since…you guessed it…the 1980s. And when I say “vulnerable folks,” let me give you some examples…mmk? Folks who grow up in poverty, folks with mental health illnesses, folks suffering from addiction, folks stuck in abusive relationships, folks going through a lot of trauma.
These are folks who need our help, and when we don’t provide them any help they crash out bro and next thing ya know, they don’t have a home. 
So ending homelessness requires that we do three things.

1. Provide more low-cost housing
2. Make it so everybody makes more money
3. Restore a social safety net for vulnerable folks

It’s that easy. I mean, it’s that difficult. Well, I’m a glass half full kinda guy so it’s that easy.
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^1. https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-inflation-adjusted-wages-increased-in-the-past-decades?utm_source=chatgpt.com
^2. https://www.har.com/blog_131833_housing-prices-around-america-update
​^3. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024/renter-households-cost-burdened-race

​Sources/further reading:
https://endhomelessness.org/overview/