States Say No to “Housing First”

Florida, Georgia, and Utah lead the way in breaking with HUD’s failed model on homelessness policy.

In response to the homelessness crisis, more states are diverting funds away from the preferred policies of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Citing the failures of California, which devotes more money than any other state to efforts based on HUD’s Housing First model, legislators in Florida, Georgia, and Utah took steps this year to put millions of dollars behind policies built on rehabilitation and behavioral health treatment, with the ultimate goal of independence from government support.

These changes come in the wake of battles across state capitals and at the Supreme Court over whether homeless people should be allowed to camp on sidewalks. At the core of these arguments is a pervasive discomfort with how to respond to an unprecedented increase in unsheltered homelessness over the last decade. Nationally, unsheltered homelessness is up 30 percent since 2013. In some states, such as Nebraska and Utah, both the absolute number of unsheltered homeless individuals and the proportion of homeless people living on the streets rather than in shelters or temporary housing has more than doubled since then.

For homeless individuals with behavioral health issues, substance-use disorder, and severe mental illness, the situation is particularly grim. Nationally, 60 percent of homeless people who use drugs lack shelter; the same is true for just under half of those with severe mental illness. More intensely than most states, Florida and Utah have witnessed a shift toward this higher-need, more complex homeless population. In Florida, the figures have climbed 27 percent and 13 percent, respectively, over the last five years; in Utah, they have each roughly doubled. Georgia has fared better by some metrics, but with 47 percent of its homeless population lacking shelter, the state has taken the lead in pioneering a different approach.

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