With SCOTUS set to hear Johnson v. Grants Pass on April 22, here's what you need to know, and what you can do to make a difference.

An advocate's primer about what homelessness is, what it isn't, how we got here, and what we can do about it

On April 22, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass. "This sets the stage for the most significant Supreme Court case about the rights of homeless people in decades," says the National Homelessness Law Center. "Grants Pass, like many cities in America, is thousands of housing units short of what is needed. That shortfall will not be solved by putting more people in jail or issuing more tickets. The solution to homelessness is safe, decent, and affordable housing for everybody."

We want to empower you, our supporters who are committed to creating pathways out of homelessness, with what advocates have learned over the years: what homelessness is, what it isn't, how we got here, and what we can do about it—that actually works.

Common Myths About Drugs, Mental Health, and Crime

First, it's important to understand that homelessness as we know it is a modern problem dating back to the 1970s and '80s. But addiction and mental health crises—often blamed as root causes of homelessness—are omnipresent throughout human history.

Similarly, intimate partner violence—which we at Doorways know often leads to homelessness—is not new. Yet, the total number of survivors sheltered in Doorways' safehousing, our emergency shelter for individuals and families experiencing homelessness due to imminent danger of domestic and sexual violence, has more than doubled in the last five years.

So what IS the real cause of rising homelessness? Simply, there is not enough housing that is affordable. It's no joke; the rent really IS too high.

It is absolutely critical to provide human services, including those related to domestic and sexual violence, mental health, and addiction-related services. And, doing so alone will not solve homelessness.

Criminalizing homelessness won't solve it, either. Nor will it help people experiencing homelessness. In fact, criminalization makes things worse.

So what CAN we do? First, learn the facts. Then, take action!

The Intersection of Homelessness and Domestic Violence

"Nobody should have to choose between staying in an unsafe home and having no home at all.

The need for safe and affordable housing is one of the most pressing concerns for survivors of violence and abuse. Understanding the connection and designing services that address the intersection is essential to survivors’ ability to recover from violence and move forward with their lives.

This video provides an understanding of the connections between domestic and sexual violence and safe, affordable housing, and provides tools for advocates working at this intersection."

Homelessness in the U.S. Reached a Record High Last Year

"To advocates, it hardly comes as a surprise.

'We simply don't have enough homes that people can afford,' says Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. 'When you combine rapidly rising rent, that it just costs more per month for people to get into a place and keep a place, you get this vicious game of musical chairs.'"

Rental Housing Unaffordability: How We Got Here

"As we noted in our most recent report, America’s Rental Housing 2024, the number of cost-burdened renters hit a record high in 2022 as half of all households spent more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent and utilities. The rapid increase in cost burdens since the start of the pandemic accelerated a much longer-term trend of rents outpacing incomes. While current cost burdens are high by recent standards, they are especially high when looking at affordability trends over the last 60 years. Looking at this span of time shows how two periods, the 1970s and the Great Recession in the late 2000s, fueled the modern affordability crisis. While the nation had started to see modest improvements in affordability as incomes rose during the last half of the 2010s, the pandemic once again worsened conditions at a rate not seen since the housing bubble burst.

"Rental housing was relatively affordable in the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s when about a quarter of all renters were cost burdened (Figure 1). Severe burdens were also rare, with less than 14 percent of renters spending over half of their incomes on rent in both 1960 and 1970. The 1970s brought a recession that created the first large gap in renter affordability. Income inequality heightened, inflation outpaced the growth in renters’ incomes, and multifamily starts slowed abruptly. By 1980, the cost burden rate hit 35 percent with more than half of those renters experiencing severe burdens."

✅ The Housing First approach and its derivatives, including Domestic Violence Housing First for survivors

To provide stable housing to individuals who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness:

• Housing First is the most effective approach for ending homelessness for most individuals and families. Housing First is a bipartisan, evidence-based practice backed by multiple, national studies
• Greater funding is needed to ensure social services providers have the resources, staff, and training required to successfully implement the components of Housing First – namely, the ability to work collaboratively and intensively with clients in a trauma-informed manner, as well as to provide flexible funding for housing and secondary financial needs that prevent clients from remaining safely and stably housed

✅ Four key policy recommendations from Community Solutions

To scale the impact of the progress we are seeing in Built for Zero communities:

1. Align government grants and contracts toward the goal of ending homelessness
2. Ensure communities can collect and use comprehensive, high quality, person-level data 
3. Preserve and increase the supply of affordable housing
4. Ensure equitable access to affordable housing

✅ Model policies from the Housing Not Handcuffs campaign

To break the vicious cycle of criminalization and shift law and policy away from this misuse of the criminal justice system to address homelessness and towards true solutions:

• Shorten homelessness by stopping its criminalization
• Prevent homelessness by strengthening housing protections and Eliminating unjust evictions
• End homelessness by increasing access to and availability of affordable housing

What you can do to help end homelessness, and to support our neighbors experiencing homelessness

Advocate

• Sign up to receive advocacy alerts from the National Alliance to End Homelessness
• Sign up to receive action alerts and the latest news on vital federal legislation that impacts survivors of domestic violence from NNEDV
• See policy recommendations from Community Solutions
• Take this free training, How to Advocate to Your Lawmaker, to learn how to advocate about issues important to you; see more tips from the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance
• Join in the Built for Zero movement, and see how others are using their unique influence to create a future where homelessness is rare and brief
• Act now to support survivors through the NNEDV online action center
• Act now through the National Alliance to End Homelessness action center

Donate

• Give the gift of safe harbor, healing, and hope by donating to Doorways
• Support more of Arlington's safety-net organizations serving our neighbors experiencing homelessness

Volunteer

• Learn about volunteering with Doorways
• Join the Arlington County Continuum of Care (CoC)