653,104 people were homeless on a single night in 2023 — a record. Emergency services cost $35,578 per person per year. Permanent housing costs $12,800. Housing First works.
We're a policy platform with 50 researched positions on every major issue. This page breaks down our homelessness plan — but there's much more to explore.
In January 2023, the annual Point-in-Time count found 653,104 people experiencing homelessness on a single night — the highest number ever recorded in the United States. The number has risen every year since 2017. The primary driver is not addiction or mental illness. It is the cost of housing.
The housing affordability crisis is the engine of American homelessness. Nationally, there is a shortage of 7.3 million affordable rental units for extremely low-income households. In no state can a minimum-wage worker afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. When wages stagnate and rents rise, the people at the bottom fall off the edge — and the edge is the street.
The eviction crisis compounds the problem. 3.6 million eviction filings are made every year in the United States. An eviction on your record makes it nearly impossible to find new housing — landlords screen for eviction history, creating a permanent blacklist. One study found that a single eviction doubles the risk of experiencing homelessness within the following two years. The US has no national eviction prevention system.
The mental health system failure is another major contributor. The deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s-80s closed state psychiatric hospitals without building the community mental health infrastructure that was supposed to replace them. Today, the largest providers of mental health "care" in America are jails and prisons. People with untreated schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe depression cycle between emergency rooms, jails, shelters, and the street because the treatment system that should exist does not.
Other major pathways into homelessness include wage stagnation (real wages for the bottom quartile have barely moved in 40 years while housing costs have doubled), aging out of foster care (20% of foster youth become homeless within two years of aging out at 18), domestic violence (the leading cause of homelessness among women and families), and veteran transition failures (37,000+ veterans were homeless on a single night in 2023).
For the full data on each of these drivers, see the homelessness issue page and the housing policy.
The data is clear: the number-one cause of homelessness in the United States is the inability to afford housing. Not addiction. Not mental illness. Not "bad choices." It is an economic problem with an economic solution — and the countries that treat it that way are the ones that solve it.
Nationally, approximately 30% of people experiencing homelessness have a serious mental illness and roughly 35% have a substance use disorder (with significant overlap between the two groups). That means the majority of homeless people have neither. They are people who lost a job, couldn't pay rent, got evicted, fled domestic violence, aged out of foster care, or experienced a medical emergency that wiped out their savings. The narrative that homelessness is primarily about addiction serves a political purpose: it makes homelessness a moral failure rather than a policy failure, which conveniently excuses the government from having to solve it.
Even among homeless individuals with addiction or mental illness, the evidence strongly suggests that substance abuse is more often a consequence of homelessness than a cause. Life on the street is brutal — exposure, violence, theft, sleep deprivation, constant trauma. Many people turn to drugs or alcohol as a coping mechanism after becoming homeless, not before. Treating addiction without providing housing is like treating a wound while the patient is still lying in traffic.
The cross-national evidence is dispositive. Countries that treat homelessness as a housing problem solve it. Countries that treat it as a moral failing don't. Finland adopted Housing First and reduced homelessness by 40%. Japan has near-zero unsheltered homelessness through comprehensive housing programs. The US, which has oscillated between criminalization and inadequate shelters for decades, has watched the problem grow to record levels. The evidence points to one conclusion: housing ends homelessness. Everything else is distraction. See the drug policy page and the mental health policy for the full treatment integration framework.
The Common Good plan treats housing as a right and homelessness as a solvable policy problem. It is built on Housing First — the only approach with a rigorous evidence base — and includes prevention, treatment integration, and targeted programs for veterans and youth.
The plan addresses homelessness at every stage: preventing it before it happens, ending it quickly when it does, and ensuring it doesn't recur. Each provision is modeled on programs that have already been proven to work at scale.
For the complete plan with legislative detail, cost projections, and sourcing, see the full homelessness issue page.
Housing First is the most rigorously studied approach to homelessness in the world. It has been tested in randomized controlled trials, replicated across dozens of cities and countries, and endorsed by every major public health organization. It works. Here's the evidence.
Finland is the global gold standard. In 2008, Finland adopted Housing First as national policy — converting emergency shelters into permanent apartments, building new affordable housing, and providing support services. Homelessness dropped by more than 40%. Long-term homelessness dropped by more than 60%. Finland is now the only country in Europe where homelessness has declined while every other European nation has seen increases. The Finnish government estimates that each person moved from the street to permanent housing saves 15,000 euros per year in emergency services.
Houston, Texas reduced homelessness by 63% since 2011 using a Housing First approach combined with a coordinated entry system that matches individuals to available housing. The city housed more than 25,000 people — including a 64% reduction in veteran homelessness. Houston demonstrates that Housing First works not just in Scandinavian social democracies but in large, politically diverse American cities.
Medicine Hat, Canada became the first city in North America to achieve "functional zero" homelessness — meaning anyone who becomes homeless is rehoused within 10 days. The key: a commitment that no one waits for housing, combined with a coordinated system that tracks every person and matches them to available units.
The cost data is unambiguous. Emergency services for a chronically homeless person — ER visits, psychiatric hospitalizations, police contacts, jail stays, shelter nights — average $35,578 per person per year. Permanent supportive housing costs $12,800 per person per year. Housing First doesn't just work better — it costs less. Every city that has rigorously studied its Housing First program has found net savings to taxpayers.
| Approach | Annual Cost/Person | Housing Retention | ER Visits Reduction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency Services (Status Quo) | $35,578 | N/A | N/A |
| Traditional Shelters | $25,000-$30,000 | 50-60% | Minimal |
| Permanent Supportive Housing | $12,800 | 80-90% | 58% |
| Rapid Rehousing | $5,000-$8,000 | 85%+ | 40%+ |
Sources: HUD, National Alliance to End Homelessness, Journal of the American Medical Association, Urban Institute. See the full homelessness issue page for complete sourcing.
The United States has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world — and it is one of the only wealthy nations where the number is going up, not down. The countries that are reducing homelessness share one thing in common: they treat it as a housing problem and solve it with housing.
| Country | Homeless per 10K | Trend | Approach | Housing First | Vet Homelessness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 19.7 | Rising (record) | Mixed/fragmented | Partial | 37,000+ |
| Finland | 8.0 | Declining | Housing First (national) | Full adoption | Near zero |
| Japan | 0.3 | Declining | Comprehensive housing | Adapted model | Near zero |
| United Kingdom | 14.5 | Rising | Mixed | Partial | Declining |
| Canada | 13.0 | Rising | Housing First pilot | Expanding | Declining |
| Australia | 12.0 | Rising | Mixed | Partial | Declining |
The pattern is striking. Finland and Japan — the two countries with comprehensive, housing-centered approaches — have the lowest rates and declining trends. The United States, with the most fragmented approach and the least commitment to permanent housing, has the highest rate and a rising trend. This is not a coincidence. It is a direct consequence of policy choices.
Japan's rate of 0.3 per 10,000 is particularly instructive. Japan achieves this not through criminalization or forced institutionalization but through a combination of comprehensive housing assistance, robust employment programs, and a social insurance system that prevents the economic shocks that cause homelessness in the first place. For detailed party comparisons, see the Compare Parties page.
Public attitudes toward homelessness are shaped by decades of myths that serve to justify inaction. These myths survive not because they are true but because they are convenient — they transform a solvable policy problem into an intractable moral one. Here are the four most persistent myths and what the evidence shows.
Myth: "They choose to be homeless."
Reality: The overwhelming majority of people experiencing homelessness want housing and will accept it when it is offered. Housing First programs, which provide housing without preconditions, achieve 80-90% housing retention rates. The idea that people "prefer" living on the street — exposed to violence, weather, disease, and constant danger — is contradicted by every shred of data. Some individuals refuse shelter beds, but shelters are not housing: they are crowded, dangerous, and temporary. When offered actual permanent housing, the vast majority say yes.
Myth: "Giving housing enables addiction."
Reality: The opposite is true. People in Housing First programs are more likely to engage in addiction treatment, not less. Randomized controlled trials show that Housing First residents reduce substance use over time at equal or higher rates than those in "treatment first" programs. The reason is intuitive: you cannot maintain sobriety while sleeping under a bridge. A stable home provides the foundation — a safe place, a routine, a refrigerator for medications — that makes recovery possible. Finland's national data confirms this: as homelessness declined, so did substance abuse rates among the formerly homeless population.
Myth: "It's too expensive to solve."
Reality: Homelessness is already expensive — we just spend the money on emergency rooms, jails, and shelters instead of housing. A chronically homeless person costs $35,578/year in emergency services. Permanent housing costs $12,800/year. Every Housing First cost study has found net savings. Denver saved $31,545 per person per year. Charlotte saved $2.4 million in one year for 85 people. The question is not whether we can afford to solve homelessness — it's whether we can afford not to. See the budget page for the full fiscal framework.
Myth: "Most homeless people are severely mentally ill."
Reality: Approximately 30% of people experiencing homelessness have a serious mental illness. That means 70% do not. The largest subgroup of homeless Americans is families with children — people who lost housing due to eviction, job loss, or domestic violence, not psychosis. The myth that homelessness equals mental illness is driven by visibility bias: unsheltered individuals with untreated psychiatric conditions are the most visible on the street, but they represent a fraction of the total homeless population, which includes people in shelters, cars, motels, and doubled-up with family. For the full mental health integration plan, see the mental health policy.
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653,000 Americans are homeless. Emergency services cost $35,578 per person. Permanent housing costs $12,800. Finland solved this. Houston solved this. Read the full plan and see how we solve it nationally.