The Aug. 20 story by reporter Rachel Ohm, “How I became homeless,” demonstrates the value of first-person accounts to the understanding of the problems of the unhoused.

A major piece of research recently conducted by the University of California at San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, titled California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness, used the same method on a large scale, with surveys and in-depth interviews reaching nearly 3,200 unhoused individuals who were chosen as a broadly representative sample.

One of the main findings of the study is that as people slip from stable housing to living on the streets, they become more vulnerable to poor health, trauma and other hardships, so that it becomes much harder to find safe, stable and affordable housing.

Accordingly, one of the main recommendations is to address homelessness before it starts by focusing on prevention strategies. Early intervention, at a variety of service settings (like social service agencies, health care locations, domestic violence services), is critical for both leaseholders, who had a rental lease or a mortgage and whose causes tend to be economic, and non-leaseholders, whose causes tend to be social. Expanding transition services at institutional exits (e.g., jails and hospitals) and strengthening eviction protections will also protect vulnerable people (including those living from paycheck to paycheck).

Policymakers, institutions, social service agencies, landlords and the public in general need to work together to address the causes of homelessness with the commitment and understanding that every penny spent on prevention equals out to a dollar’s worth of cure.

Zack Barowitz
Portland

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