A New History of Homelessness

by Israel Bayer · 2010-07-28 15:35:00 UTC
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Millions of Americans are homeless and tens of millions more are at-risk.

The Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), a group of grassroots homeless organizations based in California and Oregon, this week released an updated version of a popular report that attempts to explain why. WRAP says, "the 2010 update focuses public attention back on the #1 reason for this housing mess: the federal government's divestment in affordable housing programs and deregulation of the housing market." Full disclosure: I'm on the board of the Western Regional Advocacy Project.

The in-depth report, "Without Housing: Decades of Federal Housing Cutbacks, Massive Homelessness and Policy Failures," was first released in 2006, and has since become a go-to resource for politicians, scholars, think-tanks, poverty organizations and the general public [editor's note: and bloggers!] to track the rise of modern-day homelessness. From the Reagan-era in the 1980s, when the federal government dismantled the social safety net, to the present day, the report outlines the past three decades of policy failures that have led us to this point. This point = not good.

The new report also gives an abridged history of homelessness dating back to the 1929 stock market crash when more than one million people found themselves without homes, and details on how the United States effectively responded to the crisis by creating both urban and rural housing programs to systemically change the face of homelessness.

The updated report is not only a gaze into the past, but is also a fresh look at the present-day realities of homelessness in America. By highlighting both the local and federal responses to homelessness we see how people experiencing homelessness and mental health have been systematically stripped of their human rights. We also see in the report a road map for the future, and how we can effectively fight poverty by methodically changing how the system is structured.

The WRAP report looks at these different quagmires, and offers a grassroots approach to getting involved, and possible solutions to what has become the everyday crisis we know as homelessness.

You can download the new report here.

Israel Bayer is the Executive Director of Street Roots, a street newspaper in Portland, and the Chairperson of the North American Street Newspaper Association.
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