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Prevention of Homelessness: Overview

Citizens, service providers, and researchers are united in believing that homelessness in a wealthy nation like the United States should be prevented. Ideas for preventing homelessness abound, but evidence about how well particular prevention strategies work, or would work were they to be tried, is sparse. This entry evaluates different approaches to preventing homelessness, using evidence from actual programs where they have been put to experimental test, and considering the evidentiary argument for other approaches.

Types of Prevention

Prevention is often divided into primary prevention, or preventing an unwanted event from occurring in the first place, and secondary prevention, or ending an unwanted event or condition rapidly after it has occurred. Prevention programs are also often classified by the breadth or narrowness of their targeting: Universal prevention programs, like fluoride in drinking water, are applied to the entire population; they are always forms of primary prevention. Selective and indicated prevention programs are applied to people at risk by virtue of their membership in some group or by virtue of their individual characteristics; these can be either primary or secondary prevention efforts.

Truly universal programs can be hard to evaluate, although if they are applied in some locales but not others, or at some times and not others, some inferences about their effectiveness are possible. Selective and indicated programs may be easier to evaluate, since some portion of the eligible group can simply be assigned to receive a program that is not (at least initially) available to others, and both groups can be followed to see what happens. But success in reducing a problem in the group that is treated may or may not hold much promise for reducing the rate of the problem in the overall population. That depends in part on how much that group contributes to the overall problem, how successfully those at risk are identified, and whether helping that group disadvantages anyone else. For example, a program to give priority to homeless people for a fixed supply of subsidized housing units means denying those units to others. If the people who are denied the units then become homeless, from the perspective of the population as a whole, homelessness has been reallocated rather than prevented. It is also important to realize that programs may have multiple goals—for example, ending homelessness for a group of people, moving them to self-sufficiency, and improving their quality of life. All those goals may be worthy, but it is important to distinguish among them.

Universal Primary Prevention Programs

Universal primary prevention strategies attempt to reduce the incidence, or new cases, of homelessness in the population. When the U.S. Conference of Mayors polled member cities in 2002 about what strategies the federal government should undertake to prevent homelessness, the one strategy that was mentioned in some form by all of the eighteen cities that responded was to increase the supply of affordable housing. Similarly, in a 1994 survey of nearly 4,000 service providers, local officials, and both homeless and formerly homeless people regarding fifteen potential federal actions to prevent homelessness, the federal Interagency Council on the Homeless found that providing more affordable housing was the top priority.

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