No Room at the Inn: Housing Policy and the Homeless

Abstract

My argument can be advanced through a syllogism that I hope to prove in succeeding sections:

1. Homelessness is primarily caused not by personal deficiencies, but by structural problems in metropolitan housing markets.

2. As a housing market problem, it is primarily a matter of inadequate supply, not inadequate economic demand.

3. A major cause of the inadequate supply of low income rental housing in large metropolitan areas with expanding service economies is the unintended effects of government policies.

4. Q.E.D.: to solve the problem of homelessness, it is not enough simply to spend more money on shelters; instead, housing policies, at all levels of government, must be redirected.

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Homelessness

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Authors

Todd Swanstrom (State University of New York, Albany)

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