HUD Disregards Families
Millions of homeless kids and parents don’t count
I want to raise the ante of Suzette Hackney’s USA Today opinion column, “COVID-19 could devastate the homeless. How will America pick up the pieces?” (Jan. 30, 2021)
In addition to worrying about the impact of COVID-19 on people experiencing homelessness, and about the extreme undercount for HUD’s annual point-in-time count, it’s even more concerning that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has persisted at a gross dismissal of those experiencing homelessness in the U.S, ignoring millions of families and individuals who have no place to live.
HUD’s refusal to acknowledge this far greater scope of homelessness is at the root of why so many end up in various forms of homelessness. HUD fails to acknowledge the connection between homeless children and youth who then, for a number of reasons, end up on the streets as adults, not to mention endangered by COVID-19 and a multitude of other perils. It’s way past time for changing the paradigm of homelessness (also the title of a book my colleagues and I wrote).
