Mapping the riskscape of using privately-owned short-term lets for specialist family violence crisis accommodation

COVID-19 has generated many problems and some opportunities in the housing market. The potential role of privately-owned short-term lets meeting specialist family violence crisis accommodation demand is one such opportunity. This paper engages with an important and increasing practice in the Australian context, of the utilisation of private housing stock as a component part of a public housing crisis response system, in this case explored in relation to domestic and family violence. In seeking to gain insights into the feasibility of this practice, this article will first frame mixed public/private accommodation provision as potentially overlapping relations between a thin territory of insufficient crisis infrastructure and a thick territory of commodified short-term let infrastructure. Second, this paper situates the potential of this intersection of mixed private/public responses in terms of riskscapes by unpacking how risk is perceived within these contested territories. The findings highlight tensions between both real and perceived understandings of safety, housing, wellbeing, economic and political risks. While there was some support for utilising short-term lets for crisis accommodation, barriers were revealed to adding thickness to the crisis accommodation space. Given increasing homelessness in Australia, diversifying crisis models could offer increased violence-prevention infrastructure to support women.

Domestic Space Connections, Relationships and Overcrowding in Affordable Housing

In people's imagination, the dwelling represents a fundamental part of life. The house has forever been not only a shelter, but it also occupies the majority of people's economic and temporal resources. The matter of housing has become however noticeably more complex following the COVID-19 pandemic, since it has imposed a different relationship between the dwelling and the way of living the population was used to, as well as working, entertaining and conducting their own lives. Therefore, in addition to the energetic matters, already highlighted for some time, also problems related to the general welfare have been added, with particular attention to the quality of the space in which the daily life takes place. The paper reports some initial considerations of a piece of research which intends to investigate the domestic space and its relations with the users in the new house-hold configurations and in possible evolutionary scenarios of the concept of house and domestic space. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Taking Class Seriously

This article critically analyzes the human rights perspective upon what has emerged as one of the most significant socioeconomic and political challenges confronting many millions of people residing within high-income, liberal-democratic societies: rising poverty and socioeconomic inequality. This article argues that international and domestic human rights law and the social and political imaginaries of the wider human rights community largely fail to adequately diagnose and effectively respond to poverty and inequality within high-income, liberal-democratic societies. As a political and ethical doctrine founded upon a normative commitment to social justice, human rights should be taking the lead in efforts to condemn, understand, and develop responses to the poverty and inequality which blight the lives of many millions of people within many of the world's most affluent and, allegedly, most "liberal” societies. Human rights law has historically not done so. We, as a community, have not done so. This article offers a specific explanation for this continuing failure, by focusing upon the absence of any concerted recognition of or engagement with social class as it contributes to and compounds our exposure to poverty and inequality. Human rights remain largely blind to the many ways in which social class is intricately connected to poverty and inequality. The human rights community within high-income, liberal-democratic societies characteristically fails to take class seriously. Building upon previous writing in this area, this article explains why class is rarely recognized or engaged with by the human rights community. This article also sets out the basis for how we might begin the task of overcoming this highly damaging class blindness, to set the stage for what the author asserts as an urgent need if human rights is to provide the kind of political and ethical leadership required to effectively engage with poverty and inequality in affluent societies: the degentrification of human rights.

Thermal Comfort Analysis Using System Dynamics Modeling—A Sustainable Scenario Proposition for Low-Income Housing in Brazil

As a riveting example of social housing in Brazil, the Minha Casa Minha Vida program was set in 2009 to diminish the 6-million-home housing deficit by offering affordable dwellings for low-income families. However, recurrent thermal discomfort complaints occur among dwellers, especially in the Baltimore Residential sample in Uberlândia City. To avoid negative effects of energy poverty, such as family budget constraints from the purchase of electric appliances and extra costs from power consumption, a simulation based on system dynamics modeling shows a natural ventilation strategy with a mixed combination of sustainable and energy-efficient materials (tilting window with up to 100% opening, green tempered glass, and expanded polystyrene wall) to observe the internal room temperature variation over time. With a 50% window opening ratio combined with a 3 mm regular glass window and a 12.5 cm rectangular 8-hole brick wall, this scenario presents the highest internal room temperature value held during the entire period. From the worst to the best-case scenario, a substantial reduction in the peak temperature was observed from window size variation, demonstrating that natural ventilation and constructive elements of low complexity and wide availability in the market contribute to the thermal comfort of residential rooms.

Private sector involvement in social and affordable housing

Key points Increasingly, a combination of government, not-for-profit, and for-profit organisations are involved in financing, developing and managing specialist, social, and affordable housing. The private sector appetite for such partnerships has never been stronger, reflecting increased corporate governance and shareholder expectations for investments and projects that deliver social and environmental outcomes. Maximising these opportunities to increase new social and affordable housing supply through increased private involvement will require strong policy setting and regulation, efficient procurement processes, and adequate and ongoing ‘gap' subsidy from government, particularly to serve those in highest need. Models should emphasise collaboration and partnership across the public, community, and private sectors, to build capacity throughout the housing industry. This collaboration should be guided by rigorous Australian Government, state and territory government and local government housing strategies. These strategies should identify long term demand for specialist, social, affordable and market housing and articulate clear delivery targets by market segment. These strategies must be underpinned by firm funding commitments and viable delivery mechanisms. Wider benefits associated with private sector participation in social and affordable housing include: the opportunity to support skills and capacity building across the housing industry;improved environmental outcomes in residential housing stock, including social and affordable housing;and local employment and training opportunities. This project investigates the potential for wider private sector involvement to increase the supply of social and affordable housing in Australia. This research draws on the insights of industry leaders and sector experts through a series of Investigative Panels and case studies, as well as a review of the international evidence. This research asks whether and how increased private sector involvement could augment social and affordable housing delivery efforts, increasing housing industry capacity across private not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. In this study we use the term private sector to refer to all non-government and non-public entities. This includes both for-profit and not-for-profit housing providers. For the purposes of the research, the community housing sector is deemed to be part of the private sector. Key findings Reflecting longer term social and economic policy reforms, social and affordable housing is increasingly financed, developed and managed by a combination of government, community-based and market providers. This reflects increasing ‘hybridity' across the housing system, whereby community or not-for-profit housing providers have shifted towards more quasi commercial practices to increase and cross-subsidise their operations (Blessing 2012;Mullins, Milligan et al. 2018). Similarly, some for-profit firms and social enterprises have sought to produce or deliver social or affordable housing, while investors are increasingly valuing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals and demonstrable corporate social responsibility in business (van Bortel and Gruis 2019). The documented need for 36,000 new social and affordable homes per year to meet the forecast demand to 2036 (Lawson, Pawson et al. 2018) is so great that it is clear this ‘hybridity' of the housing system and cross-sector partnerships are essential;no one sector can address the need alone. In the United Kingdom (UK), private investment in social and affordable housing dwarfs government grant funding by a factor of three to one (Williams, Williamson et al. 2020). Savills UK estimates that the combination of debt finance, government grant, and planning contributions (under s106) is sufficient to fund delivery of around 190,000 new affordable rental dwellings and 60,000 shared ownership dwellings between 2021—26 (UK 2021). In the United States (US), over one million affordable rental units have been financed by private invest rs incentivised by the longstanding low-income housing tax credit scheme, including over 100,000 new dwellings in 2020 alone (US Housing and Urban Development 2021). Existing initiatives in Australia While more modest in scope, Australian governments have also sought to encourage private involvement in affordable rental supply and have entered into a variety of partnerships and joint ventures predominantly at the state level to renew or develop new social and mixed tenure housing. The establishment of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHIFIC) Bond Aggregator in 2019 was a major Australian Government initiative to raise low-cost debt finance for community housing providers. In the wake of COVID-19, state and territory governments have committed significant new funding and initiatives to construct additional social and affordable housing units. These include commitments to deliver over 75,000 new social and affordable housing dwellings. Further, community and Aboriginal housing organisations are working with private partners to deliver mixed income projects which cross subsidise social and affordable homes, while also achieving wider benefits of employment, education and community engagement. Despite these initiatives, Australia's well documented shortage of affordable housing will persist without enduring government equity co-investment programs (Lawson, Pawson et al. 2018). These programs are needed to provide the final gap funding so construction of affordable developments by either not-for-profit or for-profit private sectors is financially feasible. Expert perspectives A series of Investigative Panels and interviews with 45 experts across housing, finance, development and policy sectors revealed strong appetite for affordable housing partnerships, reflecting an increasing focus by boards and shareholders on projects that deliver social and environmental outcomes. Private for-profit participants demonstrated a high level of familiarity and investment of time in understanding the sector, forming partnerships with community housing organisations, and indeed tendering for and delivering social and affordable housing. Other key findings included: • Participants emphasised that affordable housing for low-income earners will always require some government subsidy, capital contribution, access to government land and or an inclusionary planning mechanism. Dwellings that house the highest needs clients require the deepest subsidy. • However, when considered across the continuum of housing need, some products (such as those targeting moderate-income earners) require lower levels of government subsidy because they are able to pay more for their housing. Consequently, participants identified significant potential for private investment in affordable housing for key workers. Institutional investors suggested that if the Australian Government and state and territory governments funded social housing in the same way as other infrastructure—by setting targets and providing ongoing subsidies or availability payments—it would unlock a significant capital market of investment to meet long term demand. • Developers broadly recognised the need for mandatory inclusionary zoning (with mandatory requirements seen to create a ‘level playing field' and to enable requirements to be factored into land costs), on the proviso that it is phased in over several years to not financially disadvantage projects on sites already owned, and ideally with incentives such as density bonuses. • Developers and policy leaders see mixed tenure projects, including the redevelopment of public housing estates, as opportunities for increasing social and affordable housing supply through private involvement. • Industry participants see the community housing sector as an essential partner in all mixed tenure projects, though community housing developers noted reluctance to take disproportionate risk on market-rate housing used to cross-subsidise affordable housing. • All participants spoke of delays in government procurement processes and planning approval uncertainties, which increase costs in both risk premiums and holding costs for mixed tenure and affordable housing projects. Further, participants cautioned that ongoing government support to grow the community housing sector will be important if they are to partner effectively in mixed tenure developments at scale. Overall, participants reported that repeated changes in government policies and programs and a lack of continuity across political and bureaucratic leadership undermine opportunities to expand social and affordable housing through private sector involvement. The lack of a stable national program of ‘gap' funding to complete feasibility on social and affordable housing projects holds supply back;finite state and territory programs cannot provide the scale required for large scale institutional investment. They emphasised that certainty is essential for investor confidence, across all regulatory and program settings. Program permanence rather than finite, closed-ended initiatives would encourage participation. Participants across all of the investigative panel meetings and interviews identified wider benefits that may arise from private sector participation in social and affordable housing. These benefits include: the opportunity to support skills and capacity building across the housing industry;improved environmental outcomes in residential housing stock, including social and affordable housing;and local employment and training opportunities. © Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Limited 2022.

Shared and Crowded Housing in the Bay Area: Where Gentrification and the Housing Crisis Meet COVID-19

Amid the growing affordable housing crisis and widespread gentrification over the last decade, people have been moving less than before and increasingly live in shared and often crowded households across the U.S. Crowded housing has various negative health implications, including stress, sleep disorders, and infectious diseases. Difference-in-difference analysis of a unique, large-scale longitudinal consumer credit database of over 450,000 San Francisco Bay Area residents from 2002 to 2020 shows gentrification affects the probability of residents shifting to crowded households across the socioeconomic spectrum but in different ways than expected. Gentrification is negatively associated with low- socioeconomic status (SES) residents' probability of entering crowded households, and this is largely explained by increased shifts to crowded households in neighborhoods outside of major cities showing early signs of gentrification. Conversely, gentrification is associated with increases in the probability that middle-SES residents enter crowded households, primarily in Silicon Valley. Lastly, crowding is positively associated with COVID-19 case rates, beyond density and socioeconomic and racial composition in neighborhoods, although the role of gentrification remains unclear. Housing policies that mitigate crowding can serve as early interventions in displacement prevention and reducing health inequities.

Widening the gap: the differential impact of COVID-19 on tenants and homeowners

In this article, we study how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the housing inequalities between Flemish tenants and homeowners in terms of housing affordability, security and adequacy. Analyzing online survey data, we find that the pandemic increased the existing affordability gap in Flanders between homeowners and tenants. These differences between tenants and homeowners are explained by heterogeneous unemployment and income shocks. We find similar results for the differential impact on housing insecurity. Furthermore, relatively more tenants experience problems with the size of their dwelling due to the pandemic compared to homeowners. We find that these differences are best explained by the dwelling type as well as the household size, unemployment and work-from-home. The analysis shows that the COVID-19 crisis had a significant effect on the housing conditions of Flemish tenants and homeowners and exacerbated existing inequalities. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL EDUCATION ADVOCACY IN A BALTIMORE CITY PUBLIC HOUSING PROJECT

[...]the polio nightmare was over when, in 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk announced the invention of the first polio vaccine. In October 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Wagner-Steagall Act creating the United States Housing Authority, established to administer federal funding in the form of loans and grants to local jurisdictions for low-income housing. In February of 1939, Baltimore obtained a loan of 26,390,000 dollars to demolish slums and build five public housing projects-in addition to two other projects-on vacant land. The final vacant land project took two more years of political wrangling: no white neighborhoods would condone a public housing project for African Americans being built.

Vacancy Change in Vulnerable Census Tracts in Portland, Oregon

This article examines areas of suspected blight in Portland, Oregon, by analyzing the increase of vacant addresses in vulnerable census tracts between 2015 and 2019 using U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data on vacant residential or no-stat addresses that are reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). From 2015 to 2019,15.8 percent of vulnerable census tracts experienced suspected blight in the City of Portland, representing 11.4 percent of the total population of Portland. Trends from 2020 to 2021 indicate a general decline of vacancies reported by USPS, suggesting fewer instances of blight in Portland. Further analysis of 2020 to 2021 data and vulnerable census tracts is needed, pending the release of American Community Survey (ACS) data.

Methods of Construction to the Meet Housing Crisis in the UK Residential Sector: A Comparative Study between Timber Frame and Masonry Construction

Major efforts have been invested in the UK Residential sector to meet the increasing housing demands, deliver sustainability, and improve its resiliency against many uncertainties. While data/information within the UK residential sector relating to location, sizes and volumes are annually updated, there is limited emphasis on the methods of construction that support meeting housing demands. Over the years, it has been recognised that the UK residential sector has been dominated by two methods of construction: timber frame and masonry. This study aims to holistically compare timber frames with masonry as the two domineering construction methods for the UK residential sector. The comparison will be based on build costs, preference and drivers by construction professionals, longevity and consumer confidence, and sustainability. The research methodology was developed based on applying mixed methods of quantitative data analysis of build costs and qualitative data assessment of semi-structured interviews. The findings showed that, from a build cost perspective, masonry methods of construction are a more cost-effective choice with major variation in material cost. However, although the masonry method of construction was more favoured, in many respects, small-in-size developers show more tendency to timber frames, as this is being rationalised by meeting sustainability targets. Practical implications show that the future of the residential sector in meeting the housing demands would heavily depend on Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), as it offers a more optimised mechanism;however, the uptake of this is considerably low. Future studies will enquire into pillars to make MMC efficient in the UK residential sector.

How a Community Foundation's Disaster Framework Guided Rapid Pandemic Response

Serving as an intermediary between donors and a wide variety of regional causes they support, the foundation provides philanthropy and civic leadership to address community challenges. Since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in August 2005, the foundation has become a recognized expert in philanthropic response to disasters, lauded for the strategic principles underlying deployment of its standing Disaster Response and Restoration Fund and broader disaster response framework (Greater New Orleans Foundation, 2022b). [...]the city and its surrounding region have endured 16 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster declarations, including three hurricanes during the record-breaking 2020 season in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic (FEMA, 2021a;National Oceanic Key Points * Disasters create opportunities for philanthropy to rebuild equitably by prioritizing the most vulnerable community members in disaster response and addressing existing disparities and structural inequities in the recovery phase. According to Easterling, these foundations acting as community leaders go beyond traditional grantmaking to convene diverse stakeholders and catalyze cross-sector solutions to community challenges. [...]during the BP oil spill, the Greater New Orleans Foundation pressed Congress to amend provisions for citizen engagement and permanent set-aside funds for unforeseen issues to the RESTORE Act1 providing federal relief (Barry et al., 2012). [...]community foundations might take advantage of brief opportunities created by disasters to address otherwise entrenched deficits and disparities facing their communities, introducing largescale social innovations which might in turn enhance community resilience (Westley, 2013).

How to Save Chinatown: Preserving affordability and community service through ethnic retail

Chinatowns in North America have been especially hit hard by COVID-19, a reality of anti-Asian racist and xenophobic sentiment exacerbated by the global pandemic. The factors contributing to increased business closures, commercial vacancy, and gentrification in Chinatowns have existed before the pandemic and have only been exacerbated. In order to preserve Chinatowns, municipalities have enacted historic preservation and small business support measures, such as historic designations, technical assistance for businesses, increased permit scrutiny, and legacy business programs. This study investigates the difference in retail changes across three Chinatowns in Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles both prior and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concurrently, this study also examines the impact of retaining a legacy business program and other preservation measures on the retail landscape. Interviews with city officials, organizers, community institutions, and members of the business community were conducted along with an analysis of existing local programs, policies and reports. This study finds that measures taken through historic preservation, small business support, and pandemic relief have not significantly addressed core needs within Chinatown communities. The most effective forms of relief and preservation was affordable housing, community-ownership of commercial businesses, and direct assistance for commercial rent. This study also acknowledges that some Chinatowns are faring better than others due to the ability of the Chinese community to fight against to historic discriminatory planning practices such as urban renewal, slum clearance, and highway building. The impact of these histories is deeply intertwined with the survivability of ethnic retail within each distinct Chinatown, and depending on the strength of existing community ties that remain will inform how preservation policies should be enacted.

Additional dwelling units: A potential solution to the affordable and senior housing crisis

As housing prices continue to rise faster than inflation and wages in the US, affordable housing continues to become difficult, borderline impossible for minimum wage and renter wage workers to obtain. This paper aims to explore the possibility of zoning regulations to allow the widespread construction of additional dwelling units (ADUs). Many macroeconomic factors continue to contribute to the unavailability of affordable housing. A combination of low wages, low housing stock and high property values contribute to the senior and affordable housing crises. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the impact of these factors on affordable housing. Low-income individuals and families were unequally affected by increased unemployment rates. Senior housing has become a more pressing issue as the senior population continues to increase and most seniors live on a low monthly income based on pensions and assets. This makes it difficult for the majority of seniors to continue to afford where they were living when they were fully employed and removes the option of aging in place. ADUs provide a unique solution to both the senior and affordable housing crises through increasing housing stock in pre-existing areas and neighbourhoods. This is done through the reduction of zoning restrictions by local governments to allow homeowners to convert detached garages and basements into apartment dwellings. This gives the homeowners a potential source of monthly income through rentals, as well as increasing housing stock in pre-existing areas. ADUs can contribute towards the necessary increase in senior and affordable housing to combat their respective crises. © 2022, Henry Stewart Publications.

Factors Influencing House Purchase Intention among PKNS Housing Fair Visitors

This study was conducted to understand the factors that influence house purchase intention among consumers visiting PKNS housing fair using the Theory of Planned Behaviour. This study found attitude, quality, location, and advertisement did influence consumer intentions to purchase a house, meanwhile, brand was found to have no relationship on consumer's purchase intention for a house. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data from visitors visiting PKNS property fair and sales gallery. A total of 200 visitors responded to the questionnaire. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 25.0 was used to analyze the data. The findings found that there is a relationship between attitude, quality, and advertisement towards purchase intention. However, brands and locations have no significant relationship towards purchase intention. Finally, this study will serve as a guide for real estate developers in meeting the needs of consumers in obtaining their dream homes.

The Economic Impact of the Pandemic on Older Adults

The global health pandemic exacerbated existing economic disparities for many older adults who struggled as a result of structural inequality. Even before the onset of COVID-19, many older adults of color showed signs of financial precarity as they were more negatively impacted by the housing crisis of 2008, losing their homes at disproportionate rates or never recovering the loss of equity in their homes. Older adults of color shoulder the burden of this reality, and their lives have been further devastated by the pandemic, resulting in greater economic instability, and expanding income and wealth gaps.

SA's housing crisis requires full participation from public and private sector

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT : What has clearly emerged is that the government - be it at municipal, provincial or national level - cannot adequately, sustainably, and consistently fulfill its obligations to the citizens. Visions of a better, more inclusive future for all need to be elevated beyond political rhetoric, requiring an expertise that the government has demonstrated it cannot satisfactorily deliver on. The role of public-private partnerships and their significance in speeding up bureaucratic governmental processes has taken on more prominence as the pandemic has made the necessity for agile, flexible, timeous, outcomes-driven solutions imperative

Seeking Shelter: How Housing and Urban Exclusion Shape Exurban Disaster

From extreme weather to infectious disease, disasters now arrive in ever more rapid succession, combining with and compounding one another with increasing complexity and potential for crisis. In this context I suggest a particularly important site for analysis and intervention: the chronic lack of affordable housing and broader processes of exclusion now prevalent in cities around the world. These dynamics, I argue, help drive increasing movement to and development in interface zones between urban, rural, and undeveloped areas. In so doing, they also are implicated in a range of "exurban disasters", including wildfires and infectious disease, and in the broader crises these disasters generate for vulnerable populations. The article develops this relational argument across three moments. First, I posit contemporary dynamics of housing crisis and urban exclusion, which prevent people from finding adequate shelter in cities, as key drivers of displacement and settlement across various framings of urban interface zones - from the Wildlands Urban Interface [WUI] to the peri-urban fringe. I then explore how the increasingly forced settlement in these zones - themselves destabilized by prior processes of settler colonialism, neoliberal land-use planning, and climate change - contribute to both environmental and health related disasters. Here I focus on two contemporary cases: catastrophic wildfire in the WUI of California, and the emergence of zoonotic diseases in peri-urban regions around the world. Finally, with a focus on California, I explore how, once health and environmental disasters land and combine within a single location, inadequate housing increases the likelihood of multiple forms of exposure and susceptibility - e.g. to toxic smoke, respiratory ailments, and COVID. In conclusion, I argue for increased scholarly and political focus on the role of housing crises and urban exclusion in both the origins and outcomes of disaster. More scholarly and political work is needed that bridges city and hinterland, linking disaster research to critical approaches in housing studies and urban political ecology, together with wildfire ecology, epidemiology, and environmental stewardship.

Study on the Multi-Governance of Public Rental Housing Exit in China Based on the Evolutionary Game Theory

The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the housing affordability and living sanitary conditions of China's low-income groups into a crisis. Public rental housing has made a significant contribution to alleviating this crisis, yet its exit problem has become more acute due to the impact of the epidemic. In order to explore how to effectively play the role of multi-governance in public rental housing exit, this paper adopts game theory to analyze the evolution of the behavioral strategies of government departments and public rental housing tenants in public rental housing exit by combining four influencing parameters: the epidemic severity, the epidemic influence coefficient, the public participation degree, and the public reporting fairness. In response to exploring the conditions for the effective functioning of the multi-governance model under the impact of the epidemic, the influences of parameter change on the stability of the system are analyzed. The results show that when the COVID-19 epidemic impact coefficient is high, government departments need to reduce their own supervision costs to achieve better multi-governance effects;when public reports are distorted, the government departments’ own supervision capabilities determine the impact of public participation on governance effects.

Not Counting Homelessness in All Its Forms Is Not Acceptable

[...]the nation will never have reasonable estimates of the likely surge In pandemic-driven homelessness that occurred despite eviction moratoriums and other valiant attempts to prevent it. [...]it is simply unknown how many Americans who lack affordable housing are among the so-called "hidden homeless"-frequently or permanently "couch surfing" with friends, relatives, or even strangers willing to rent a bed for the night-but it's a good guess that many of those waiting in line to collect federal housing subsidies are doing so.6 Even if they are captured as being part of a "household" in Census Bureau surveys, they will never show up in other federal statistics about homelessness-impairing both the nation's understanding of the dimensions of housing unaffordability and potentially limiting policy interventions to address it. [...]housing and homelessness are clear social determinants of health, and having accurate and timely data about the multiple dimensions ofthese issues is critical to determining both the health impact and the relative contributions that various policies could make to curtailing or ending homelessness.