Intro

Why is it important to address the bias? Any bias among architects is dangerous because we solidify it in the built environment. We have arguably the biggest bias against the homeless, summarized in the following statement: “The homeless are lazy, crazy addicts who are on the street by choice.” This statement describes an imaginary client - Frank Gallagher from the TV show Shameless. We need to address the bias first and meet the real clients before we hope to serve them properly.

Let’s review the graph above. Homelessness is a pit - a place below the economy and society. As of 2022, there are 550,000 people there. The homeless are classified by the amount of time they spend in the pit:

• 80% - transient. 3 months or less.

• 10% - episodic. 3-12 months (3 times a year or more).

• 10% - chronic. 12 months or more. The most visible and stigmatized group among the homeless.

• Hidden. Temporarily living with others with no guarantee for the long term. (It was me, age 4 to 9. In Russia, this is not classified as homelessness).

As such, we have a flow of people through the homelessness pit. The flow is quicker towards the top of the pit, slower towards the bottom, and motionless for 13,000 people who die on the street every year.

There are economic, societal, and legislative causes of homelessness. Causes dig up the pit and cave the society into it thus making homelessness inevitable. Individual risk factors determine who goes into the pit. Managing an individual’s risk factors decides who comes out and when (and if).

There are two distinct attitudes toward the pit of homelessness:

• Fill it up. “To fix homelessness, we need to fill up the pit. We must focus on addressing the systemic causes of homelessness.”

• Don’t fall in. “To fix homelessness, we need to train people not to fall into the pit. We must focus on managing the risk factors, making each individual less likely to become homeless.”

Full disclosure: I’m on the fill-it-up side. An incident in my childhood taught me not to leave any pits open, physical or metaphorical. That said, I don’t deny the significant role of risk factors. More on that later.

Economic Causes:

The US has a sizable gap between housing/rent prices and the people’s purchasing power. This gap is the homelessness pit. A multitude of factors widen and maintain the gap that transforms the housing market into a game of musical chairs. Someone will be left without a chair - left homeless.

• Lack of affordable housing/rent. Specifically, there is a lack of such housing close to places of work. It makes housing/rent prices too high for an average person. For context, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Minneapolis in 2023 is $1,600/m - a paycheck and a half for many. In LA, there are “vanlords” who rent parking spots to the homeless to live in cars, tents, or RVs. The going rate of such service is $600-800 a month.

• Economic distress. The three deepest pits of homelessness existed during the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and COVID lockdowns. Economic distress hurts people's purchasing power.

• Gentrification. While we get higher taxes and profits from renewed properties, we create a scarcity of affordable housing.

• Foreclosures/evictions. If you fall on bad times, landlords or banks could delay your eviction until you can pay (for most, such furlough would be three months or less). However, landlords and banks are not charities and choose a safer route: evicting the struggling tenant and finding a more stable one.

• Zoning and building codes. Communities will resist affordable housing to protect property values. The government will also resist affordable housing as it offers low tax revenue. Furthermore, traditional huts, cars, and tents are classified as substandard and illegal, which limits the flexibility of shelter typology and increases the hostility of the street (more on that in the later articles).

• Health. In the US, it is an economic issue. It unites people going through medical bankruptcies, people with disabilities left unable to earn income and cover the cost of drugs and medical procedures, and people with widely stigmatized mental health issues (including substance use disorders).

• Natural Disasters. Wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, or other natural disasters might destroy your house and the entire community. Even if your insurance covers such situations, the massive community-wide damages frequently exceed the payout capacity of insurance companies and they declare bankruptcy. Therefore, a stable and insured middle-class family could end up homeless.

Social Causes

Economic issues alone are not enough to put one on the street. It always takes a double punch: economy, then society. Arguably, the second punch is the critical one:

• Lack of support from friends and family. Family and friends are the first places individuals reach out to after ending up on the street.

• Lack of government assistance programs. The US has a safety net, but it is patchy and perpetually trimmed.

Legislative Causes

In retrospect, some legislative initiatives caused a spike in homelessness. Below are a few examples:

• The Community Mental Health Act of 1963. The deinstitutionalization of mental health patients sent them back to their communities without resources or tools to help them. Many such patients ended up on the street, thus starting a stereotype of all homeless being mentally ill. The issue has not been addressed to this day.

• Affordable Housing Funding Cuts. In the 80s, the government decided to withdraw from the housing market. The market correctly determined that competing for luxury segments yields higher profits. Affordable housing declined over the following decades without government support and with market neglect. The government has since tried to return to the housing market (Section 42, Section 8) with limited success.

• Distressed Housing Demolition. Slum demolition. Nobody likes the way the slums look. As such, the slums are demolished and replaced with market housing three times prettier and three times more expensive. The slum residents are displaced to another slum or on the street.

Somebody isn’t getting a chair in Housing Musical Chairs. The question is: who? What people make up the bottom layer of society that is caved into the homelessness pit? The graphs below show that most homeless are single young males living in the cities. However, if we dwell on those statistics too long, we’ll get trapped in Survival Bias. In our case, Survival Bias occurs when we examine a certain subgroup among the homeless and forget to compare it to the same subgroup among the housed. It skews our perception of some risk factors, making them appear more important than they are.

Accounting for survival bias, what would be the most devastating risk factor to have? If you guessed “addiction, laziness, craziness, or choice,” you are wrong.

Note: below, the orange numbers with * are lifetime numbers (people who WERE in the subgroup at some point in their life). The orange numbers without * are current numbers (people who ARE currently in the subgroup). While numbers with and without * give a good approximation of each risk factor, they cannot be directly compared. The homelessness statistic in the US lacks consistency; this is the best I could do with the imperfect data set.

#1. Foster System - 50%*

Nearly half of foster children in the US become homeless once they are released from foster care. Half of the people who are currently homeless were in the foster care system. It makes sense: with the death of their parents, the orphans lose economic and social support at the same time. The perfect storm of risk factors puts them a coin flip away from homelessness.

#3. LGBTQ+ Youth - 28%*

28% of LGBTQ+ youth and 8% of LGBTQ+ adults experienced homelessness as a result of violent prejudice against them.

#4. Criminal Record - 5.7%*

5.7% of formerly incarcerated people end up homeless (2.03% if we exclude hidden homelessness). Overall, 19,000,000 people in the US have a felony (6% of the US population), and 80,000,000 have some criminal record (24% of the US population). Banks will deny loans, and landlords will deny leasing applications to people with criminal records of any kind.

#5. Unemployment - 2.42-3.84%

About 13,000,000 of the US population are unemployed as of 2022 (4% of the US population). Out of them, 2.42-3.84% (depending on studies) will end up homeless.

Unemployment is not a clear-cut issue. Once again, we have a gap between the number of people seeking jobs and the number of jobs offered, so another game of musical chairs is afoot. Unemployed ≠ lazy as most unemployed are:

• Between jobs,

• Have a job but are unable to perform it (COVID lockdowns),

• Lose jobs to automation or other market adjustment with a less-paying job offered as an alternative. For example, McDonald’s is always hiring, but McDonald’s wage will not cover student loan payments for what is now a diminished college degree.

#7. Addiction - 0.95%

There are 20,000,000 people with substance use issues in the US, 0.95% of whom are homeless. This is a generous number as it also includes people who became addicted on the street.

21% of lawyers, 15% of physicians, and 10% of CEOs are suffering from similar chronic substance use issues, and all are incredibly successful housed people.

Addiction ≠ homelessness. However, addiction makes it more difficult for an individual who is already homeless to overcome homelessness.

#8. Education - 0.72%

40,000,000 in the US did not finish high school, and 0.72% will become homeless. Note that 27% of homeless have advanced degrees. By the time an individual finishes college, the market might shift and devalue the job the degree was aimed at. The student loans will remain with the individual now taking lower-paying jobs.

#10. Mental Health - 0.25%

There is a mental health crisis in the US: 58,000,000 people have mental health issues. 0.25% of them will end up homeless.

#11. Choice - Negligible %

Specifically, I’m talking about a frivolous choice. While one can make an argument that a victim of domestic violence or prejudice ended up on the street by choice, it is a sensible choice aimed at preserving dignity, life, and health.

I’ve been searching long and hard for somebody on the street by frivolous choice. After a year and a half of reading articles and watching videos, I found one such person. Meet Trek Thunder Kelly, an artist. He stayed on the streets for five years as a part of his artistic journey.

“I have the largest house in Venice (LA). Venice is my home. I have a mobile bedroom (a van) and a world culinary choice in the food court. The gym is my shower/restroom. I just happened to have long hallways.”

I don't want to sound like a traitor to my profession, but Trek makes some good points. As the housing market becomes increasingly neglectful and hostile towards the occupants, exchanging housing hell for public heaven starts to make sense.

Risk Factor Bingo

Let’s assemble all risk factors into a Risk Factor Bingo for ease of use. How do we play it and stay off the street?

There are no rules to this game. The goal is to beat the statistics, and the annoying thing about statistics is that it can always beat you. You are never guaranteed success or failure. There is no “do X and be housed forever” or “do Y and become homeless for sure.” You can have the same bingo card as somebody else, but you will end up homeless, and the other person won’t.

Nonetheless, managing your risk factors is important. Let’s take smoking as an example. We’ve all heard a story of somebody’s grandma who smoked like a chimney and lived to see her 100th birthday. Good for her, but let’s not forget 1,000 people with the same habits who died before seeing their grandchildren. You are much likelier to be a statistic here, not a statistical anomaly. Stack your chances in your favor, not against.

What can be done?

If you are homeless already, all you can do is manage your risk factors. You cannot sit and wait for the system’s weight to lift off your shoulders (it won’t). Let’s look at the young lady marked red. It wasn’t her fault that her boyfriend is an abuser. However, it is now up to her to lock him up. It is unfair, but so are most of the risk factors.

The rest of us housed individuals should focus on changing the game so that when (and if) the young lady returns, she has a guaranteed spot.

Now, with all this information in mind, let’s examine the shelters and see where the young lady went…