Housing prices are chronically unaffordable in many American cities. Most prominently, mega-cities like San Francisco and New York feature home prices that effectively price out poor and middle-income people from vast swathes of their environs; however, there are also plenty of mid-size cities that have less extreme affordability problems. Several strategies are frequently on the table to make housing more affordable to those of moderately low incomes. These include: (1) increasing allowed residential construction, (2) incentivizing housing by offering additional air/development rights, (3) subsidizing housing, (4) requiring the mandatory provision of affordable housing alongside market-rate development, and (5) increasing the amount of government-run housing.

All these strategies are potentially valid ways to address different manifestations of a lack of housing affordability. However, many provide long-term rather than short-term relief, and/or do not reach the poorest people or those in the most dire circumstances: namely, the homeless.

Homelessness is the most extreme manifestation of an affordable housing crisis, and ending homelessness is the focus of this article. Because my objective is to end homelessness, I will use the fifth strategy of providing government-run housing. I consider homelessness to be an individualized “state of emergency,” where the government must take urgent action to address the needs of its homeless residents—much like a municipality would swiftly put out a fire or stop a bank robbery. Slow-acting tactics like zoning law changes or providing subsidies strike me as an unacceptably lethargic solution to the immediate needs of homeless people. Governments should provide housing for the homeless first, then work to get them into various configurations of private housing over a longer term.

Studies show that the most effective means of addressing the underlying causes of homelessness is to provide homeless people with housing first. A housing first strategy seeks to give homeless people (literally) a solid foundation to recover from the trauma which precipitated their homelessness. After all, can we really expect a person to apply for jobs when they don’t have a roof over their head? And how can we expect a person to recover from addiction if they must sleep on the ground?

A housing first strategy also sets a strong foundation from which many other government social programs may work. Social programs become both easier to administer and more effective when beneficiaries have a known address and the security of guaranteed housing. Every taxed and charitable dollar spent on people with secure housing tends to have a greater effect than dollars spent on people without housing because hospital visits and overall public spending are reduced per beneficiary. Because spending on medical care and other services are reduced, governments and charitable organizations can use the savings to either improve service by spending more money per beneficiary, or benefits can be distributed to more people.

A Practical Foundation

Because chronically homeless people tend to have little income they can afford to spend on housing, this article assumes municipalities will provide these homes to the homeless completely free of charge. In practice, there will often be cases where people living in the houses can contribute to the maintenance or funding of the facilities—either by small payments or work in lieu of payment—but such cases are dependent on the nature of the municipality and the nature of the homeless population being served. Therefore, this article will forgo the substantial revenue and services many homeless residents will be able to provide in exchange for their houses in order to better demonstrate the practicality of simply building houses for homeless people.

Taxpayer money is being spent to provide these houses, so prudence requires that planners figure out design specifications that will yield the best house possible for the least amount of money. All nonessential features of a “standard” American house must be stripped away until we are left with a “basic” house. This basic house will function to provide a reasonable level of comfort and shelter for its occupants. The tiny houses that are in vogue today are examples of houses that provide adequate shelter and comfort at a low price with quality materials.

Since 2013 a few cities and private organizations have begun to construct tiny house developments for their homeless populations. The video below provides some insight into the character of these places and the effect these houses have had on formerly homeless people: