Why Are So Many People Experiencing Homelessness?

Every day, more individuals and families across the United States—and right here in Florida—are being pushed into homelessness. It’s easy to make assumptions about the causes, but the truth is, homelessness is the result of multiple, overlapping systems that are falling short.  Here’s a closer look at the root causes of homelessness, and why this crisis continues to grow.

🔑 1. Lack of Affordable Housing

The leading driver of homelessness is simple: there is not enough affordable housing. Across the country, rents are rising much faster than wages. In Florida, only 23 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renters.

This is really simple.  If there was enough housing for people at all income, we could quickly solve homelessness.

💸 2. Poverty and Income Inequality

Poverty puts people on the edge of housing instability. When you live paycheck to paycheck, one emergency—an illness, a broken car, a lost job—can be the tipping point.

Without a financial safety net, even a minor setback can lead to eviction.  The median household income in the State of Florida is $73,311. A single adult makes about $30,584.  That’s the median – that means half of the people are making less than that.

🧠 3. Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges

While mental illness and substance use don’t cause most homelessness, they can make it harder to escape it. People with untreated conditions often face discrimination, lack of income, and difficulty navigating services. And without stable housing, it’s nearly impossible to recover or stay well.

Too often, people only get help after they’ve lost everything—if at all.

🏥 4. Lack of Access to Healthcare

Uninsured or underinsured individuals face compounding risks. Medical debt is a common cause of eviction and financial ruin. Chronic illnesses, disabilities, and injuries make it difficult to work or maintain housing—especially when care is inaccessible or unaffordable.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 5. Domestic Violence, Youth Displacement, and Family Conflict

Homelessness isn’t just a housing problem—its a people problem. Survivors of domestic violence often flee with no money, no documents, and nowhere to go. LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately kicked out or rejected by their families. Teens aging out of foster care frequently fall through the cracks, with no long-term support.

These aren’t isolated stories—they’re patterns we see every day.

🏛️ 6. Systemic Failures and Public Policy

We didn’t get here overnight. Decades of disinvestment in public housing, mental health care, and income supports have created a system where vulnerability equals risk of homelessness.

When people leave prison, aging out of foster care, or being discharged from a hospital or treatment center, they often exit directly into homelessness and with the new legislation – often find themselves arrested, only to be released back into homelessness again.

🏘️ 7. Zoning, Land Use, and “Not In My Backyard” Attitudes

Even when communities want to build more housing or shelters, local zoning laws and NIMBY opposition slow or stop the process. These local decisions add up—and have contributed to a national crisis.

🔄 8. Displacement and the Cycle of Instability

Natural disasters, rent hikes, evictions, and redevelopment projects frequently displace low-income renters. Once someone becomes homeless, it can be difficult to climb back into housing without assistance—and often, the longer someone is unhoused, the harder it gets.

Homelessness Is Solvable—But Only If We Understand It

Understanding why people are homeless is the first step toward ending homelessness. This crisis isn’t inevitable. It’s the result of policy choices, and it can be changed with better ones.

Solutions exist: The local Continuum of Care model – bringing resources together including housing with healthcare for severely disabled persons, supportive services, affordable housing development, eviction prevention, and increased investment in health and behavioral care. But to solve the crisis, we need the public and policymakers to see the whole picture—not just the symptoms, but the causes.  There are a lot of people pointing to community providers and blaming them, when they do not have control of every system of care or decisions made at all levels of Government.

No one wants people living on the streets, we have the solution – help us move people into housing and keep them there.