Houselessness in the United States continues to be a prevalent problem with large implications. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in 2022, there was a recorded number of 582,000 people who experienced houselessness with many of these people living without a permanent home for an extended period of time. Many of Morant McLeod’s estimates put this number far higher.
There are a number of factors that lead to people experiencing houselessness. Which consist of economic, health, and social aspects in addition to housing issues. According to the teams at Morant McLeod, three of the main reasons for houselessness in the United States are housing availability issues, broken connections between services and people in need, and regional cluster misalignments that produce unexpected circumstances.
According to Ernest Stephens, Founder and CEO of Morant McLeod, regional clusters refer to different areas in a country that intentionally support particular industries, skills building, and supporting services. When supports, including services that meet health and behavioral needs are underestimated and not utilized to their full potential, increased pressure is experienced by communities, especially those who are at-risk of becoming houseless. We can see this in regional education to workforce pipelines and where they do not align, becoming a contributing factor to houselessness.
Education to workforce pipelines are economic structures in which people receive an education and use it to develop a skill set to successfully enter the workforce, followed by a sustainable career. It’s important to support people as they navigate these pipelines to better ensure a viable economic future. Many of the people currently experiencing houselessness in the United States have fallen out of these pipelines at some point in their life. When this happens people are at a greater risk of not receiving the proper services and opportunities they need.
Supporting services include governmental activities and products, such as police and fire departments, some medical services, and infrastructure services. Every region has different structures in place to maintain those services, and carry about their business in unique ways. However, it’s important for regional governments to understand how the industries and services change over time and how changes affect the population in the area, including unhoused or at-risk communities. According to Stephens, when these clusters begin to change, unintended consequences can have negative impacts on the population. Governments need to know how to support developing new clusters in such a way that reduces unintended consequences and alleviates pressure on at-risk and unhoused communities.
Over time communities in regional clusters both face change naturally and as a result of outside influences. As the communities change, so do the housing needs. Morant McLeod’s research indicates that providing the right housing, economic, and service portfolios to meet both current and future needs can significantly reduce the risk of people becoming unhoused. Without this alignment, increased economic pressure is placed on the population. This adds additional risk to people becoming unhoused, and later struggling to find basic services.
To combat the problem of houselessness in the United States, teams at Morant McLeod are working with governments and large organizations to understand comprehensive data on the current state of unhoused communities in their regions. Morant McLeod works hand-in-hand with governments and large organizations to research and plan new policy changes, then implement programs that are designed to meet regional goals, which includes transitioning people out of houselessness, providing them with housing stability. Their research works directly with unhoused communities to learn about their individual, community-level, and regional situations. They do this to gain valuable insight into what led up to communities becoming unhoused, and how governments can implement the best strategy to help.
Morant McLeod is a consulting firm that works with regional, national, and global enterprises to reach organizational goals, while also using their research and strategic planning capabilities to create social change for the better. Teams at Morant McLeod are currently working with government organizations to help people experiencing houselessness in their regions. They find that their government clients have been able to better understand the circumstances and issues regarding houselessness even before their strategic plans are enacted.
“It’s important for people to understand that houselessness is not only an issue of having a roof or not, but a complex blend of economic, social services, and housing issues,” says Stephens. “Once people make this distinction we can begin helping unhoused communities in a comprehensive way, giving them a chance to live a comfortable life and enjoy stable opportunities that everyone should have.”
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