Homelessness is a Housing Problem

How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns

Gregg Colburn & Clayton Page Aldern

In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city—including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, generosity of public assistance, and low-income mobility—and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country. Instead, housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a far more convincing account.