Beyond shelter: Policy directions for the prevention of homelessness

Homelessness in the United States is increasing at the rate of 20 to 25 percent each year, despite the growing number of services developed to help homeless people. Emergency responses, exemplified by shelters, must shift to emphases on preventing homelessness. The author relates homelessness to broader issues in the economy, the housing sector, and social services and recommends a series of preventive strategies that will keep people at work, with their families, on decent welfare benefits, in affordable housing, or in mental health settings. The analysis of homelessness, its antecedents, and strategies for preventing homelessness delineates the basic elements of innovation needed to provide housing and social supports for those whose homelessness is a symptom of social pathology. Acknowledging that prospects of closing down shelter systems are dim, the author alleges that it remains possible to halt further growth in these systems before they settle into permanent institutional arrangements resembling historical precedents of indoor relief.