By Vanguard Staff
A leading homelessness researcher is challenging the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s recent criticism of Housing First policies, arguing that federal officials are overlooking one of the most significant contributors to homelessness in the United States: the shortage of affordable housing.
In an opinion piece published by The Hill, Benjamin Henwood, a professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and director of the Homelessness Policy Research Institute, responded to recent comments by HUD Secretary Scott Turner regarding the effectiveness of Housing First, a policy approach that prioritizes stable housing as a first step toward addressing homelessness.
Henwood, who has worked in Housing First for more than 20 years and helped produce homelessness estimates used by HUD, acknowledged the severity of the homelessness crisis but argued that HUD’s assessment fails to address broader structural issues.
“The numbers are bad and reflect the crisis that Americans see,” Henwood wrote. “The diagnosis offered in HUD Secretary Scott Turner’s recent op-ed, however, is incomplete.”
Henwood agreed that housing alone is not sufficient to address homelessness and noted that people experiencing homelessness often need mental health services, substance use treatment and other support systems. However, he argued that the administration’s focus on services failed to address the lack of affordable housing available to low-income households.
“The administration is right that people experiencing homelessness need more than a set of keys,” Henwood wrote. “Stable housing matters, but so does access to mental health care, substance use treatment, and the support systems that help people rebuild their lives.”
He added, “But any serious assessment would also note there is not enough affordable housing in the country, which went unmentioned in Turner’s piece.”
Henwood pointed to HUD data showing that fewer than one in four households eligible for federal housing assistance currently receive it. According to the figures cited in the article, more than 6 million Americans remain on waiting lists for rental assistance.
The article also highlighted a long-term decline in federal housing investment. Henwood noted that Congress funded 55,000 new public housing units in 1979 but reduced that figure to zero within five years. He further reported that federal housing assistance spending has declined from 2.2 percent of the federal budget in 1980 to 0.8 percent today.
According to Henwood, these trends reflect decades of policy decisions made by administrations and Congresses of both political parties.
“Attributing rising homelessness primarily to a service model overstates what any service model can accomplish in the face of a housing supply crisis,” Henwood wrote. “People cannot be housed when there is nowhere affordable to house them.”
Henwood also challenged suggestions that shortcomings in treatment services should be addressed through changes to housing policy. Instead, he argued that agencies specifically tasked with providing health and behavioral health services should play a larger role.
“Addiction and serious mental illness require real clinical intervention,” he wrote. “If people experiencing homelessness are not getting adequate treatment, the solution is cross-agency coordination, not a restructuring of housing policy.”
He continued, “The agencies equipped to provide that care are the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. HUD should be working with them, not around them.”
As an example of successful coordination between housing and treatment services, Henwood pointed to the partnership between HUD and the Department of Veterans Affairs. According to the article, that collaboration combines housing vouchers with clinical services provided by the VA and has contributed to a 56 percent decline in veteran homelessness since 2010.
“While overall homelessness surged, veteran homelessness kept falling,” Henwood wrote.
He cited research indicating that each voucher issued through the program reduced the number of homeless veterans by one person, arguing that the success resulted from combining housing assistance with clinical support.
“That happened because housing was paired with the clinical infrastructure of another federal agency,” he wrote. “That is the model worth scaling.”
Henwood also defended the role of faith-based organizations in homelessness services while emphasizing that they should complement rather than replace housing programs.
“Faith-based organizations belong in this work and have always been part of it,” he wrote.
He noted that congregations and ministries have historically played important roles in supporting people experiencing homelessness and in recovery. According to Henwood, the strongest programs integrate housing, clinical care and faith-based support.
“The strongest programs today bring faith communities, clinical providers, and housing together around the same person,” he wrote. “That partnership should be expanded and resourced as part of a comprehensive approach, not offered as a substitute for stable housing.”
Henwood also expressed concern about changes proposed in the upcoming 2026 Continuum of Care Program Notice of Funding Opportunity. According to the article, the program shifts greater emphasis toward transitional housing and treatment-compliance requirements.
He argued that evidence from randomized controlled trials in both the United States and Canada shows poorer housing outcomes under such approaches than under Housing First.
“A change to federal policy on that basis should require a serious public engagement with the research,” Henwood wrote. “Why has that not happened?”
Henwood concluded by arguing that policymakers broadly share the same goals but should follow evidence-based strategies that combine housing assistance, treatment services and affordable housing investment.
“We all want the same outcome: people recovering, living independently, rebuilding their lives,” he wrote.
“The evidence points clearly toward how to get there. The path is a well-resourced Housing First approach, paired with the clinical and social services that were always supposed to accompany it, alongside a sustained federal investment in affordable housing.”
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