They have jobs, but no homes. Inside America’s unseen homelessness crisis.
Homelessness, already at a record high last year, appears to be worsening among people with jobs.
Deborah Bower trims a dog's face at her dog grooming business on Friday in San Ramon, Calif. She's been homeless since October. (Jungho Kim for The Washington Post)
By Abha Bhattarai
July 28, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
They are plumbers and casino supervisors, pizzeria managers and factory workers. They deliver groceries, sell eyeglasses and unload trucks at Amazon.
And they’re the new, unlikely face of homelessness: Working Americans with decent-paying jobs who simply can’t afford a place to live.
Homelessness, already at a record high last year, appears to be worsening among people with jobs, as housing becomes further out of reach for low-wage earners, according to shelter interviews and upticks in evictions and homelessness tallies around the country. The latest round of point-in-time counts — a tally of people without homes on one given night — show a discernible uptick in homelessness in many parts of the United States, including Southeast Texas (up 61 percent from a year ago), Rhode Island (up 35 percent) and northeast Tennessee (up 20 percent).
While there is no federal data on unhoused workers, shelter administrators and local groups report a spike in first-timers with jobs. In Tulsa, for example, where homelessness rose 26 percent this year, lack of affordable housing ranked as the top reason people said they were homeless, beating out mental health struggles or job loss.
“I work 50 hours a week, and it’s still really hard to keep up,” said Aaron Reed, 22, who makes $21 an hour at an Amazon warehouse near Nashville, and returns to his mother’s Hyundai SUV to sleep. He shares the back seat with their black Lab, Stella, while his mom sleeps up front.
Years of fast-rising rents and a shortage of affordable housing have created a situation where even a strong labor market and rising wages haven’t been enough to offset the financial strains of inflation.
“We are pushing working people into homelessness because they just can’t afford the rent,” said Margot Kushel, director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California at San Francisco. “The general public doesn’t see these folks as homeless — they’re not as visible as the people who occupy public spaces, who have substance abuse issues or mental health problems. But it’s a catastrophe, and it’s happening just under our eyes.”
While homelessness may not be a central issue in the upcoming presidential election, high housing costs continue to show up as a big reason Americans are frustrated with an otherwise strong economy. A recent CNN pollfound that Americans pointed to housing costs as a top economic problem facing their families, ranking just after food prices but ahead of gas, health care, student loans and child care.
More cities and states, too, are citing homelessness as among their most pressing concerns. In California, where nearly 70 percent of people without homes live outside, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Thursday ordered officials to clear homeless encampments on state land, saying “it’s time to move with urgency.”
Among those who are homeless, inflation continues to play a major role. In interviews with 30 people in 17 states who recently became homeless while employed, nearly all said exorbitant rents had not only tipped them into homelessness, but also were preventing them from securing new housing.
Deborah Bower, a dog groomer in San Ramon, Calif., has been homeless since October, after breast cancer treatments wiped out $100,000 of her savings. These days she either sleeps in her small SUV, which she parks in a movie theater parking lot, or in $95-a-night hotel rooms, where she often brings along her own dog, Bean, as well as others she’s watching overnight for clients.
Dog grooming accessories and Bower's car keys at her business in San Ramon. (Jungho Kim for The Washington Post)
“I’ve always been the one to help people, and now I’m the one who needs help,” said Bower, 60. “But I don’t want anyone to know I’m homeless. It’s embarrassing, like somehow I’ve failed society.”
Many who spoke with The Washington Post said they’re trapped in an impossible position — making too much money to qualify for food stamps and other types of government assistance, but not enough to secure housing.
All said they were working toward saving enough to cover first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit, required by many rentals, but were hampered by everyday livings costs. Many also cited poor credit scores from evictions or unpaid bills as yet another hurdle to qualifying for housing.
Plus, everything costs more when you’re homeless, said Reed, the Amazon warehouse worker. He and his mother spend $50 a day to fill the gas tank, so they can leave the air conditioner running overnight in 99-degree weather. There’s no way to cook, so they eat prepackaged foods or takeout for every meal. And without access to running water, they spend about $80 a month on large jugs of bottled water they keep in the trunk.
“Every day, it’s like, ‘Which bills can we actually pay?’” said Reed, who works 11-hour shifts at the warehouse. “We’re behind on our car payments, then we’ve got gas, insurance, phones.”
The pair have been homeless since October, when Reed’s mother was hospitalized for covid-19 and lost her job at a department store beauty counter, forcing them out of the extended-stay hotel where they’d been living for seven months.
A spokesman for Amazon said the company offers resources, including counseling, for employees facing homelessness and other hardships. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
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A record 12.1 million Americans — or about 1 in 4 renters — are spending at least half of their incomes on rent and utilities, putting them at increased risk of eviction and homelessness, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Meanwhile, there is hardly anywhere in the country where a person working a full-time minimum-wage job can afford a one-bedroom rental, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
As a result, homelessness has picked up after an early-pandemic lull as rent moratoriums, stimulus checks and other government support dried up.
The rise in homelessness “is the unfortunate but predictable result of ongoing rent increases,” said Gregg Colburn, a professor at the University of Washington and author of “Homelessness is a Housing Problem.” “And now it’s happening not just in our big coastal cities, but all over the place — in Phoenix and Denver and Atlanta.”
