Shelter Abolition and Housing First: Rethinking Dominant Discourses on Homeless Management

Abstract

According to the most recent nationwide Point-in-Time Count, in January 2020 over 580,000 people in the United States reported experiencing homelessness, of which roughly 70% were individuals. Amongst the total population of reported households experiencing homelessness, around 60% were sheltered, and the rest lived in places not meant for habitation (streets, cars, parks, etc.). The percentage of individuals experiencing homelessness who were unsheltered, however, was above 50%. Individuals make up the vast majority of those who are unsheltered.Of the total number of those living in some formof shelter—emergency, transitional, or a Safe Haven—47.2% were Black or African American compared to Whites, who constituted 42.8%. Conversely, there were over twice as many unshelteredWhite people compared to Black people. Nationally, shelters are disproportionately comprised of Black orAfricanAmerican people, at similar rates as those for prisons. Given these numbers and given the broader connection between homelessness and carcerality, in part due to the criminalization of homelessness combined with the racialization of homelessness (40% of those experiencing homelessness in the U.S. are Black or African American), scholars have begun to analyze the carceral