4 days ago
I was homeless. Trump's plan to criminalize people like me won't make you safer.
When I moved from New York to Miami for my new job in information technology, my future seemed bright. Four months later, the firm downsized and I was let go, setting off a chain of events that left me homeless. I was homeless in Miami for two years, and I spent 10 months in a homeless shelter in New York City.
Growing up in Freeport, Long Island, where my family and I overcame redlining and school segregation, I was an honor-roll student and earned an athletic scholarship to study business and restaurant and hotel management before I pivoted to IT.
Homelessness taught me that being unhoused is not a personal, moral failure. Homelessness is a market failure, a housing problem. Rent prices have exceeded income gains by 325% nationally since 1985. Rates of homelessness are tied to rental affordability. Here in New York City, in 2023, rents skyrocketed, more than seven times faster than wages, the largest gap in the country. Stigma distorts these truths.
The White House's recent moves toward the criminalization of homelessness and forced institutionalization ignore decades of research and real-world outcomes. They reject proven models like permanent supportive housing and will raise costs in lives and tax dollars for communities nationwide.
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Criminalizing homelessness won't solve it. Not in DC, not anywhere.
Permanent supportive housing emerged in the United States three decades ago with bipartisan support, then championed by the George W. Bush administration as a solution to chronic homelessness, rooted in a philosophy called Housing First. Housing First stabilizes people experiencing homelessness in permanent housing and provides them with case management support and social services based on the theory that housing stability is most people's prerequisite for success.
Crucially, Housing First does not require mental health treatment, sobriety or a job. It is difficult to focus on recovery for people living with a disability when they do not know where they will sleep tonight, and I know firsthand how hard it is to search for a job without a mailing address.
More than 300,000 people live in permanent supportive housing, all are chronically homeless and disabled. Many are veterans.
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A systematic review of 26 studies in the United States and Canada found that permanent supportive housing programs decreased homelessness by 88% while significantly lowering public costs associated with emergency services and hospital care.
Finland saw equally impressive results following a Housing First approach. From 2008 to 2022, the number of individuals experiencing long-term homelessness in Finland decreased by 68%.
Despite its success, Housing First has been chronically underfunded and inconsistently implemented across the country.
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Housing First works. Trump has the power to use it for good.
Why? In a word: stigma. Stigma drives the narrative that our unhoused neighbors are character-deficient threats to public safety, deserving of discipline and punishment rather than protection, housing and services.
The truth is that as many as 66% to 82% of people experiencing homelessness are victims of crimes annually – a rate that should shock our national conscience. Worse, it is a rate that severely underrepresents the true scope of the problem because, according to The Bureau of Justice Statistics, "less than half (44%) of violent victimizations (of people experiencing homelessness) are reported to police."
The problem is not that Housing First doesn't work. The problem is that stigma prevents proven solutions like Housing First from receiving the type of modest, sustained, national investment that will solve the problem.
President Donald Trump is known as a remarkable pragmatist when it comes to accomplishing big deals. He should know that Housing First is development first, and that 'Trump ends homelessness in four years' has a nice ring to it, from sea to shining sea.
Strong government, business and philanthropic leaders follow the data. By investing in a Housing First approach, Congress and the administration, and state and local leaders nationwide, can deliver safer streets, healthier communities and lower public health costs, while making homelessness history.
Rob Robinson is a board member of Urban Pathways, a nonprofit organization serving adults experiencing homelessness in New York City.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump may make homelessness a crime. He could end it instead | Opinion
