A Short History · United States

America Didn't Always Have This Problem

How a 55-year housing shift created modern homelessness. Until the early 1980s, "homelessness" was barely in the American vocabulary at all.

By Step Up AVL · stepupavl.org

Then: 1970

+300,000

surplus of affordable homes

More low-cost units than the families who needed them.

~1 in 4

renters were cost-burdened

Homelessness existed, but it was episodic. It rose and fell with the economy.

What changed: 1973 to 1983

Four policy shifts over a decade dismantled the supply of low-cost housing:

Federal housing moratorium (1973)

Nixon froze federal housing programs for ~18 months, halting public housing construction.

Deinstitutionalization without follow-through

States released psychiatric patients, but the promised community mental-health system was never funded.

Loss of SRO housing

Cities demolished or converted single-room-occupancy units, the cheapest homes for poor single adults.

HUD budget cut by more than half

Federal budget authority for subsidized housing peaked at about $82B in 1978 (in constant dollars), and Congress cut it by more than half in the early 1980s.

The result: the U.S. homeless population grew from the first federal estimate of 250,000 to 350,000 (HUD, 1984) to an estimated 500,000–600,000 by the late 1980s.

Now: 2024

7.2M

shortfall of rental homes affordable to the lowest-income renters

35 / 100

affordable homes available for every 100 extremely low-income renters

770,000+

people homeless on a single night, a record 18% jump in one year

The swing, in one line

+300K

1970 surplus

▶ −7.2M

2024 deficit

A swing of about 7.5 million affordable units, against a growing population.

Policy opened this gap over 50 years.

Policy can close it, too, which is why it can't be solved by police and jails alone.

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