How can people in fragile situations be kept from becoming homeless?
A permanent housing subsidy is the best way to keep fragilely situated people from becoming homeless and homeless people from having repeated episodes of life on the street or in a shelter, according to housing expert Jill Khadduri. Khadduri, a principal associate in Abt’s Social and Economic Policy Division, offers this solution in a chapter she wrote for the recently published book, How to House the Homeless.
"We need this kind of change in our housing policy, Khadduri said, explaining that "the first thing we must do is go back to appropriating funds to expand the Housing Choice Voucher program beyond the two million families and individuals the program now serves." The Housing Choice Voucher program is the federal government’s major program for helping very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing. "The research literature clearly shows that having a permanent housing subsidy is the best solution for potential and short-term homelessness," Khadduri said.
Other recommendations she makes in her chapter include targeting housing voucher assistance to the neediest people; keeping subsidies large enough to permit families to stop "couch surfing" and move into their own housing; and allocating housing assistance to dense, urban areas that have the highest rates of homelessness in the U.S. How to House the Homeless was edited by Ingrid Gould Ellen and Brendan O’Flaherty and published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2010.