Causes of the Growth of Homelessness During the 1980s

This article presents an analysis of the factors that predicted 1989 homelessness rates in large U.S. cities. Data were collected to describe homelessness rates in the 182 cities with populations over 100,000. In addition, variables were assembled to represent many factors that have been hypothesized to cause homelessness, including each city’s housing and income conditions, household resources, employment conditions, employment structure, available public benefits, and cost of living. The researcher used regression analysis to assess the impact of each hypothesized causal factor on between-city differences in 1989 homelessness rates for the 147 primary cities in the data set (excluding suburbs) and for subgroup breakouts based on level of manufacturing employment and population growth from 1980 to 1986. The article ends with a discussion of policy implications of the patterns discovered. The growth of homelessness For the first time since the Depression in the 1930s, homelessness resurfaced as a source of public concern during the recession of 1981–1982. Unemployment, as well as housing and other policies of the Reagan administration, were blamed at that time. However, such explanations increasingly seem simplistic, given the growth of homelessness during the remainder of the decade. This growth occurred despite the decrease in the official unemployment rate and the economic stability or growth that increasingly characterized the midand late 1980s. The pattern of increasing homelessness in the face of seeming national prosperity suggests that potential causes need to be explored at a more sophisticated level than has been done to date. “Housing affordability” is one of the most frequently named culprits in the rise of homelessness. The assumption is that as housing has become less affordable, homelessness has resulted. This assumption is quite reasonable, but unfortunately for both policymakers and researchers, “housing affordability” is a slippery term. Housing can become more affordable because people earn more but housing costs remain stable, or because people’s earnings stay the same but housing costs decrease. It can become less affordable because people