Housing expert Gregg Colburn uses accessible statistics to test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city—including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, generosity of public assistance, and low-income mobility—and find that none explain why, for example, rates are so much higher in Seattle than in Chicago.
Instead, he finds that housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a more convincing explanation. Homelessness Is a Housing Problem explores U.S. cities’ diverse experiences with housing precarity and offers policy solutions for unique regional contexts.
Gregg Colburn is an assistant professor at the University of Washington, where he studies housing policy, housing affordability, and homelessness. He earned his PhD from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 2017.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA).