A sociological perspective offers some insight into suitable solutions to neighborhood and housing problems, as it reminds us that these problems are intimately related to inequalities of social class, race, gender, and sexuality rather than only to individual circumstances or behaviors. For instance, it is common for people concerned with addressing houselessness to focus resources and programming on fixing the personal problems of people who are unhoused. Many shelter and housing programs offer social support, motivational coaching, counseling, and even 'life skills' classes. When we consider that many people who are unhoused have experienced trauma, mental health crises, and substance use disorder before becoming houseless, this approach makes sense. It makes even more sense when we become aware of the trauma, alienation, mental health crises, and substance abuse patterns that can develop while people are unhoused. Many people who are unhoused are often in need of robust social and therapeutic support as they make their way back to stability.
Although it is critical to provide affordable adequate housing and to reduce mental health and other concerns, it is also important to remember that various social inequalities affect who is in most need. Ultimately, strategies aimed at providing affordable housing will not succeed in addressing these problems unless they recognize the reach of social inequalities and try to reduce or eliminate these inequalities. Thus, strategies to address housing problems must include structural solutions, including those that address the root of the problem rather than only try to alleviate the problem once it already exists.
Understanding, acknowledging, and repairing past injustices are critical steps toward making homes equitably available to everyone. Tenants unions are working to empower renters and reduce evictions. Housing advocates, many of whom have been unhoused, are lobbying for more funding for affordable housing. Nonprofit housing service providers continue developing and delivering trauma-informed services that support the social and emotional needs of people striving for housing stability. In addition, community-based efforts resource and support residents of historically marginalized neighborhoods. Each of these interdependent solutions creates stable housing, a component of social justice.
Existing and Proposed Policies and Practices
Housing distribution was historically discriminatory towards marginalized groups such as people of color and low-income people. The Fair Housing Act passed in 1968 and banned the sale, rental, and other housing practices that indicated preference or discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. In 1974, it was amended to include sex, and in 1988 to include people with disabilities and people with children. Policies that reinforce and more strongly monitor violations of the Fair Housing Act could help reduce housing discrimination and its many consequences for people in marginalized groups.
In 2016, a rule by the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) ensured equal access to Community Planning and Development programs regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. Gender non-conforming individuals may find it difficult to access services because this rule applies to one specific program, not to all of them. To date, the Fair Housing Act does not include gender identity or sexual orientation. Only a handful of states have made it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity, creating a challenge for LGBTQ+ families and individuals (HUD 2016, 2022).
The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of the sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition of an individual, as well as because of sex-based stereotypes.” This Act was sent to the Senate in May 2019 after passing the House but was not taken up for consideration. It was reintroduced in 2023. If you would like to learn more, you can read The Equality Act.
To address the racial wealth gap, which is in large part a consequence of redlining and housing discrimination, Signe-Mary McKernan and Caroline Ratcliffe (2013) recommended in a testimony to a Senate committee:
- Make homeownership tax subsidies more progressive: Revise mortgage interest deduction benefits and offer a first-time homebuyers tax credit to low-income families.
- Promote retirement savings: Enact federal legislation to create automatic individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and expand the Saver’s Credit to boost low-income families' assets and ability to save for retirement.
- Reauthorize existing programs: Reauthorize the Assets for Independence program, established under the Assets for Independence Act (1998), which authorized the largest source of funding for individual development accounts (IDAs) for low-income households to help save for homeownership and other large expenses.
- Increase access to high-quality education for low-wealth families: Pass policies that subsidize higher education, which will boost earning capacity and the ability to accumulate wealth.
- Improve access to micro and small business capital: Ensure that low-wealth families are able to obtain small business loans, as self-employment can increase earnings and wealth (McKernan & Ratcliffe 2013: 2).
To address housing insecurity and houselessness, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University (2025) recommends building more housing trust funds and passing bond issuances which fund affordable housing projects and housing assistance programs, taxing corporations on high-income earners to fund housing development, implementing stronger tenant protections such as limiting annual rent increases, passing zoning reforms to facilitate housing developments, shifting toward low-cost manufactured housing, and more.
Focusing on improving educational outcomes for children experiencing housing insecurity, Gallagher and colleagues (2020) in a report for the Urban Institute explain:
"When housing is safe and high-quality, stable and affordable, and located in well-resourced, low-poverty neighborhoods, children tend to do better in school, parents report improved mental health, and the whole family benefits. Researchers have identified four interconnected elements of housing as foundational to improving educational outcomes among low-income children: Affordability, stability, housing quality, and neighborhood quality (Brennan, Reed, and Sturtevant 2014; Cunningham and MacDonald 2012; Newman 2008). Also known as the 'housing bundle,' these elements create and support conditions that affect children’s success both in and outside the classroom" (Gallagher et al. 2020: 4).
Housing affordability means that households should pay 30% or less of their income on housing so that they do not have to decide choose between paying rent or the mortgage versus paying for other necessities such as food and clothing. Residential stability refers to the need to reduce residential mobility, the number of moves that children experience. Housing quality considers both harmful physical conditions and overcrowding in the home, with healthier conditions and fewer residents improving outcomes for children. Neighborhood quality focuses on the neighborhood's access to resources and other aspects such as lower crime, more investment, and stronger social integration (Gallagher et al. 2020).
To help make the 'housing bundle' a reality and improve childrens' educational outcomes, the following practices could be implemented: Case management (e.g., coaching, mentoring, and tracking of families), resident services (e.g., connecting residents with educational or childcare services), on-site educational programming (e.g., after-school programs), housing subsidies (e.g., providing homes for housing insecure college students or families with gradeschool-aged children), and more (Gallagher et al. 2020). Feel free to read more details in the report Aligning Housing and Education: Evidence of Promising Practices and Structural Challenges.
Other policies and practices discussed in the prior chapter on Poverty may also help to address housing insecurity and houselessness.
Housing First
A relatively new and innovative approach to addressing houselessness is the Housing First model. Simply put, the idea is that if people have stable housing, solving other problems becomes more likely. Having a secure home, consistent access to schooling, transportation, and support services means that people can be more successful in addressing overlapping issues such as mental health, addiction, and seeking employment. Please watch the short video below for a quick rundown on Housing First principles.
Many communities and housing service providers have adopted the Housing First approach. Utah’s Housing First approach is a model for how these services can be made available. Through the collaboration of many local organizations and donations from local churches, real permanent semi-communal housing and services such as counseling are provided. One location, Grace Mary Manor, provides affordable housing for 84 formerly houseless people. Through programs like this, Utah decreased its houseless population by 91% (McEvers 2015).
Individual Agency and Collective Action
Individuals and communities are taking the initiative to improve neighborhood livability by increasing resources that benefit families, such as informal libraries, green spaces, and art houses. In the Social Movements chapter, we will look at how Black Lives Matter organizes mobilized resources for community care and mutual aid that prioritize the well-being of residents in under-resourced communities. Now we will turn to individual and community-based responses.
When we look at the state level, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency related to the increase in houselessness in most counties in the state in 2023. She set a much higher target for building affordable housing (Griffin 2023). She requested funding from the legislature to provide rent assistance, increase the number of shelter beds and advocate staff, and fund organizations that are working to address disparities in houselessness (Kotek 2023). In March 2023, the Oregon Legislature approved 200 million dollars in funds for these efforts. While it is too soon to tell how much impact the clear political will and the funding will have on the state of houselessness in Oregon, this work is a step in the right direction.
The city of Portland, Oregon has also been taking innovative steps to end houselessness. One effort is the Residential Infill Project. This change in zoning regulations passed in 2020, allowed for the creation of duplexes, triplexes, apartment builds of no more than six units, and accessory dwelling units in zones labeled for single-family homes only. However, these additional housing units had to meet housing affordability standards. With this change, more multi-family homes than single-family homes were built in Portland during the first year. While that’s only 367 units of affordable housing in one year, the impact of this change will only grow (Wallace 2023).
In a second initiative in April 2022, Organizers with Portland Neighbors Welcome convened the first YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard!) Conference in support of their stated mission:
"We believe that every neighborhood in our city should be open and available to people with diverse backgrounds and incomes, and that every person who wants to sleep indoors at night should be able to. We support policies that can deliver an abundant supply of homes that are affordable to rent or buy at every income level and every household size, and ensure that all tenants can live without fear of eviction or displacement. We advocate for those land use, housing, and transportation policies that will make Portland a fairer and more sustainable city" (Portland Neighbors Welcome 2022).
If you want to be inspired about what is possible, feel free to listen to these recordings from the YIMBY conference.
People Making a Difference
Working to Achieve Social Justice
Nancy Radner has been a tireless advocate for the homeless and for social justice more generally. From 2006 to 2012, she served as the head of the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness, which works with eighty-four homeless service agencies and manages more than $50 million in state and federal funding for homeless services. The Alliance also gathers and distributes various kinds of information on homelessness and coordinates political, educational, and public relations events to increase understanding of homelessness.
Before joining the Chicago Alliance, Radner was a program officer at the Corporation for Supportive Housing, a national organization that engages in many kinds of efforts aimed at helping the homeless and other low-income individuals find affordable housing. She also served as a staff attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, where she specialized in housing law.
In 2012, Radner left the Chicago Alliance for another social justice position when she joined the Ounce of Prevention Fund as director of Illinois policy. The Ounce, as this Illinois organization calls itself, advocates for early childhood education and other programs and policies aimed at helping low-income children.
Many people who receive a law degree from a top law school, as Radner did, take a job in a large law firm or with a large corporation and spend their careers helping the wealthy. Instead, Radner chose to use her legal knowledge to help achieve social justice for the poor. She once said of her efforts to end homelessness, “People call us starry-eyed dreamers. But I actually say we’re steely-eyed realists because ending homelessness is not hard. We know exactly how to do it. And what we’re trying to do is create the political will to get it fully done. We can’t prevent people from losing their housing. But what we can do is ensure that if that happens that there’s a system in place to get them out of homelessness really quickly.”
In working her entire career to help the poor and homeless, Nancy Radner has helped make a difference.
Sources: Kapos 2012; Schorsch 2010
College students are often housing insecure. One example of a local effort to address this is a coalition of local colleges and nonprofits that banded together to create housing options in response to the housing instability of COVID-19. Portland State University, Portland Community College, and Mount Hood Community College, along with the nonprofits College Housing Northwest, Native American Youth and Family Center, and New Avenues for Youth, created a new program. This program provides rental assistance for college students enrolled in their programs. If you’d like to read more about the successful programs, you can read the articles Pilot Program to Address Student Homelessness Expands This Fall and Affordable Rents for College Students. Your own college likely supports meeting students’ basic needs, including housing. You can talk to your instructor or student services to learn more about these programs. You can also use your individual agency to start or assist with such programs on your own campus.
