No Fixed Address · Episode 3 of 11 · 32 min
Why Rent — Not Addiction — Drives Homelessness
Homelessness is far from evenly distributed, and the states with the worst drug and mental-health burdens are often not those with the most people sleeping outside. The episode makes the structural case that rent levels and rental vacancy predict a region's homeless population better than poverty, addiction or mental illness, then steelmans the counterarguments.
Who's who
- Gregg Colburn+2 more episodesUniversity of Washington housing scholar, co-author of Homelessness Is a Housing Problem
- Clayton Page Aldern+2 more episodesData scientist who ran the cross-metro statistical analysis
- Stephen Eide+1 more episodeManhattan Institute fellow who argues behavioral health and disaffiliation drive homelessness
Where it happens
- California+30 more episodesHomelessness roughly five times higher than in West Virginia
- West Virginia+1 more episodeSimilar addiction and mental illness rates, far less homelessness
Timeline
- December 2018Zillow Research finds homelessness climbs faster once rent burden passes about a third of income
- March 2022Colburn and Aldern publish Homelessness Is a Housing Problem
- 2022Eide publishes Homelessness in America, the leading structured counterargument
- 2025NLIHC puts the national Housing Wage at $33.63 an hour against a $7.25 federal minimum
Still debated
Structuralists and those stressing behavioral health still differ on emphasis, though separating scale from who falls resolves much of the conflict. How quickly new housing lowers homelessness, and whether counts are accurate, remain debated.