Illustration by Ariel Davis/Bloomberg CityLab
CityLab University: Understanding Homelessness in America
As economic disruption threatens to trigger a spike in housing instability, here’s an essential primer on the causes and consequences of a thorny urban problem.
It’s time again for CityLab University, a resource for understanding some of the most important concepts related to cities and urban policy. If you have constructive feedback or would like to see a similar explainer on other topics, drop us a line at citylab@bloomberg.net.
As it has in so many other arenas of American life, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the depth and severity of the nation’s homelessness crisis. When governors and mayors delivered stay-at-home orders, many Americans—likely more than one million—had nowhere to go. Suddenly, the plight of those living on the streets became intimately linked to the well-being of everybody else as the nation sought to tamp down a contagion that targets the most vulnerable members of society.
This edition of CityLab University seeks to provide a baseline level of knowledge about homelessness, a phenomenon that has long been linked to urban life in the United States. That’s been particularly true in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City, where scenes of tent encampments and panhandlers amidst urban wealth provide a stark illustration of urban inequality. The coronavirus crisis stands to exacerbate the problem, perhaps dramatically: According to a recent study, the economic disruption, housing instability, and mass unemployment that Covid-19 has touched off in the U.S. could lead to a 45% spike in overall homelessness within one year.