"They Just Need to Get a Job": 15 Myths on Homelessness

Myths Made in America

by Mary Brosnahan

For fans of Andrea Elliott and Matthew Desmond, the former CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless breaks through the highly destructive misinformation surrounding our homeless neighbors

As the COVID-19 crisis put millions of Americans in danger of eviction, the nation’s affordable housing crisis has reached new heights. Yet Conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute continue to disseminate anti-homeless myths in the media, legislatures, and the larger

“These people just need to learn to save money.” “Most homeless people are mentally ill and dangerous.” “Runaways aren't really homeless.” Drawing on her deep legal knowledge, policy expertise, and decades of frontline service, Mary Brosnahan cuts through the misinformation to deliver two important that homelessness ultimately stems from a lack of investment in affordable housing; and that the greatest myth of all is that we should have no hope. In fact, the proven solutions are well documented, and the ability to enact them depends on us all.

Brosnahan takes a nationwide look from New York to Detroit to rural areas such as Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to debunk 15 widespread misconceptions,

that the problem is inevitable (in fact, Housing First approaches have shown great success) that “handouts” cause homelessness (in fact, the primary causes are flat wages and high rent) that homeless people need to prove that they’re “ready” to receive aid (in fact, enforcing hurdles is far more expensive and less effective than Housing First). With brilliant insight, Brosnahan showcases how by dispelling these pervasive myths rooted in fear, we can embrace the affordable, housing-based solutions that will bring our impoverished neighbors home.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, Audiobook, Economics, History, Current Affairs

Audible Audio

First published November 12, 2024

Reviews

[April (whataprilreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4✨

Coming off of related titles by Matthew Desmond and seeing fiction writers like Octavia Butler and Agustina Bazterrica hold a mirror to what a desolate future we are fast approaching, this deeply detailed and researched account of homelessness in the US is chest-clutchingly eye opening. The history of homeless, the root causes, the bloated systems that keep it in place make me feel ill. And I think worst of all, there are very few protected from the potential. We have to think differently about poverty and homelessness, or we will run this country and our people into the ground. Highly recommend this (especially the audiobook) and I will be checking out other works in this series.

[Tiffany Velasquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Statistical. As someone who’s worked directly with the homeless for years, I wouldn’t agree with a lot of this content. “Stats and numbers” can be biased. Informative if you’re looking for an “informative view.”

[Thomas B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd double feature with my other review/finished book today, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (link).

I started this book a month or two ago waiting for some friends to get to dinner, and when they got there I ended up drawing maps of processes and systems that take place in homeless Continuums of Care all over the opening pages. So in some ways, the book is semi-un-loanable because it looks like a lunatic has had a time with it. In others, if you had any of the words to go along with it, you could get a pretty good sense of coordinated entry systems, prioritization, funding flow, and more. But mostly you'd just get a lot of bad sketching. (And I'm happy to loan it out anyway.)

I have little in the way of nuanced thought about it. The 15 myths are quite well structured and Mary does a tremendous job of providing the historical angle, her personal practice experience, and practical policy thoughts on the myths. It is non-technical and straightforward without being overly simple. This is somewhat because homelessness is not a difficult moral problem if you have a heart. It is mostly because Mary has spent decades working on this cause and knows what she is talking about.

I have been in the field for a little while and arguably have a policy job in homelessness. I think this book will be my go-to from now on when people want a ground-level introduction of why the systems are as they are in this country and the myths that go along with them. Most of these myths I have known and have worked against. Some of them I believed myself, and really value the background that Mary provides (that one would be Myth 4, that Ronald Reagan created modern homelessness -- though he did exacerbate it, as we'll see shortly).

It also gave me a chance to bust out my absolute disdain for Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan again. Clinton hollowed out and almost totally destroyed the social safety net with PRWORA, but I had no idea he outright offered the destruction of HUD:

"Democratic support for the federal government's central role in providing affordable housing had diminished so thoroughly that, early on in negotiations to 'reform' welfare, to avoid the possibility of any outright veto being overridden, Clinton offered House Speaker Newt Gingrich the wholesale dismantling of the Department of Housing and Urban Development---the realization of a decades-long Republican dream."

(page 102)

Hey Bill, what the fuck?

Reagan gets a lot of well deserved scorn. Here's one that I didn't quite know all of:

"After famously not recognizing his own HUD secretary at a meeting of urban mayors (Samuel Pierce was Black), Reagan slashed HUD expenditures---both for public housing complexes and portable Section 8 vouchers---from $26 billion to $8 billion. It's impossible to overstate the significance of this carnage. If you are looking for the single, most significant factor that transformed US homelessness from a cyclical ebb-and-flow to a permanent fixture on the American landscape, this is it."

(page 88)

Very frustrating that these are the folks in leadership positions. And that was back then. Take a look at who is in power now. You'd better be as worried as I am. And I know what to worry about, so please take my word for it.

I really loved the section on international perspectives on affordable housing, particular the Finnish models. I love co-ops! I wish we better supported them in homelessness programming. I think it would be tremendous if some of our first-time homebuyer programs had options to help people purchase property in a co-op fashion and maintain affordability permanently.

But again, relatively few thoughts on this. It is very basic and a great entryway into this area. I'd recommend it to folks looking to learn the high-level stuff.

Notes/highlights:
* p26, quoting A. Lincoln - "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities."
* p31 - "The most destructive aspects of the Calvinist belief system have endured and serve most importantly to emotionally distance the domiciled from the visibly impoverished--preventing us from fully investing in humane solutions proven to work."
* p40 - "In March 1990, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would begin conducting a yearly national census of homeless people---a single-point-in-time numeration of Americans who were visibly homeless. The following morning, homeless activist Mitch Snyder---leader of Washington DC's largest shelter, ..., responded by dumping a massive load of sand on a bridge, preventing many Virginia commuters from entering DC. Once the two-ton dump trunk [sic] had emptied its load, Snyder conveyed this simple but enduring explanation: "It is easier to count grains of sand than homeless people in America.""
* p88 - "After famously not recognizing his own HUD secretary at a meeting of urban mayors (Samuel Pierce was Black), Reagan slashed HUD expenditures---both for public housing complexes and portable Section 8 vouchers---from $26 billion to $8 billion. It's impossible to overstate the significance of this carnage. If you are looking for the single, most significant factor that transformed US homelessness from a cyclical ebb-and-flow to a permanent fixture on the American landscape, this is it."
* p102 - "Democratic support for the federal government's central role in providing affordable housing had diminished so thoroughly that, early on in negotiations to 'reform' welfare, to avoid the possibility of any outright veto being overridden, Clinton offered House Speaker Newt Gingrich the wholesale dismantling of the Department of Housing and Urban Development---the realization of a decades-long Republican dream." (TB: Hey Bill, go fuck yourself. Idiot.)
* p109 - "[Broken window theory] origins can be traced to a now infamous 1982 Atlantic article by George Kelling and James Wilson, which badly twisted a 1969 research paper by Stanford Universities Philip Zimbardo, by concluding, "If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken." Kelling and wilson's enduring malignant conclusion: law enforcement should come down hard on small acts of disorder or they will metastasize into something far bigger."
* TB: Zimbardo! I had no idea he was the origin of Broken Window. You may know him from the Stanford Prison Experiment.
* p112 - "For the first time ever, median rent in the fifty most populous metro areas exceeded $2,000. Put simply, "In no state, metropolitan area or county in the US can a worker earning the federal or prevailing state or local minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom rental home by working a standard 40-hour work week." More than 40 percent of US workers cannot afford even a one-bedroom fair-market rental with one full-time job."
* p125-128 or thereabouts, discussion on the point-in-time counts. Good discussion! Huge undercount, bad at counting rural populations, etc.
* p136 - start of section on Housing First, an evidence-based best practice that you will likely see more or less scuttled by the second Trump administration for no good reason.
* p163-172 - great section on international perspectives on affordable housing, including co-ops!!

[Sydney Bonnin · Rating 4 out of 5]

very eye opening and we created the system that made this issue.

[Jackson Peven · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone who has interacted with or has opinions about the unhoused population in America.

[jas · Rating 4 out of 5]

good, but wish there’d been more on how other countries successfully fight homelessness (like china) and what specific theoretical policies the us could adopt. very statistical and informative, but feels incomplete

[Kierstyn Godenzi-Stanard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Educational and on point.

Only gripe. Author did not break up the chapters enough.

[April Zurowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Brosnahan was the leader for the Coalition for the Homeless in NYC for nearly 30 years. She is arguably one of the best and most educated and experienced individuals to write a book on homelessness. She gives insight to the causes of homelessness and breaks down many of the common myths that others believe, such as that homeless people need to work harder, yet nearly half of all homeless people have jobs. The surge of housing prices in comparison to the average wage is creating an influx of homeless people all over the US.

I think Mary is right... mostly. I agree, homeless people are still our neighbors and peers, they just need a bit more help. I agree that as a society, we should assist the needy. Fewer homeless people on the streets doesn't only benefit the newly housed person, it helps the community, the hospitals, the police, the shelters, and all of the other agencies that involve government spending on homelessness. It only makes sense that it is actually cheaper to provide permanent housing to those who qualify than to leave them on the streets. I agree, the price of housing is a much larger percentage of an individual's income than in the 1900s. I agree that more dense and affordable housing is needed.

Here's where I may have to disagree with Mary. Her final chapter dicusses change. She suggests creation of more permanent housing for the homeless. On the surface, she has a great idea. More affordable housing equals a reduction of homeless Americans on the streets. But, who builds it? Who pays for it? Where is the land available in established urban areas? And where land is needed for the government to build on, how do landowners sell for a profit? Once its built, who controls ans assists with incoming applications? Who monitors the upkeep? Does the government truly want to become a landlord to thousands? I wish Mary expanded on her solutions a bit more at the end of the book. She's likely one of the best individuals to solve our national housing crisis.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can tell that Mary Brosnahan has spent decades working on the front lines of homelessness policy and advocacy and that the book is written by someone who has actually been in the rooms where decisions are made (and where they are ignored). She dissects the most persistent myths surrounding homelessness in the US (that it's a personal failure, that mental illness is the main cause, that people "just need to get a job") and the result is a book that feels surprisingly accessible.

Even though the focus is on the US, it's far from irrelevant for readers outside the US. Many of the patterns she identifies (austerity politics, inadequate social housing, moral judgment disguised as policy) are depressingly familiar in European contexts too.
She includes a few examples from other countries, showing how different models of social support can actually work. Those moments were certainly some of the books strongest. They highlight how homelessness is less about individual circumstance and more about political design. Who gets resources and who gets left to survive without them?

Where the book, in my opinion, falls a bit short is in its proposed solutions. It's full of powerful anecdotes and smart policy insights, but by the end the author's vision for real systemic change in the US still feels frustratingly vague.
Is it fair to expect her to have the solution to the housing crisis? Perhaps not... Probably not. But given her experience I found myself wanting a deeper dive into the mechanics of reform and how to scale effective models, how to challenge entrenched interests and how to make "housing first" more than a slogan.

Still, this is an important read!
Even when some questions remain unanswered, they are the right ones.

[Connor Drotzmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Homeless people are the most visible victims of capitalism. Modern mass homelessness is a housing problem and the problem with housing is financialization, speculation, and the bipartisan defunding of public housing and mental health institutions. Brosnahan is critical of private equity backed real estate developers as well as the charitable-managerial class that derives huge salaries from NGOs. The solution is housing first models (ie housing person without regard to so called deservedness) and non-market housing through government managed multi use development and limited equity co-ops. Though homelessness and housing are structural issues, Brosnahan ends the book by advocating against the ideology capitalist meritocracy and for community engagement through soup kitchens, shelters, and individual donations of money, gift cards, and bus passes.

[Kali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much about homelessness and the root causes and the solutions that have been successfully implemented in other countries. Hopefully some of these solutions can be implemented here in the States, if the government ever learns how to function correctly. In the meantime, I appreciated the tips for things that the individual can do, because while we wait for the 'powers that be' to get it right, there are people who can be helped today in our own neighborhoods.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Properly speaking, this book is about homelessness in NEW YORK CITY, not the USA. The majority of history and statistics are about NYC, which left me wondering how much is applicable to my location outside of NYC. I wish the author would have taken time to explore other areas of the US and the homelessness issues there.

[Sally]

On a booklist email list: The Essentials: Serving the Unhoused
it's a huge problem....I'd like to be better at understanding.


https://www.booklistonline.com/The-Es...

[carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars is strong because the narrative portions weren’t necessarily 10/10 but I think it’s an excellent introduction to these myths and covers soooo many interesting topics. I’d recommend this book.

[Hanna Auer · Rating 5 out of 5]

no notes

[Dillon Shipley · Rating 5 out of 5]

changed my view on a couple things. well written for sure

[TL Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative. Laid out in a format which makes the info easy to follow and digest.

[Brittany Van Sickle-Kowalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense but so educational!! Thoughtfully put together and has a ton of references

[Meghan McGlone · Rating 4 out of 5]

more historical than i would’ve thought but it was good! dry sometimes but learned a lot

[Rusty Graves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and compelling read. Every pastor working with their city's unhoused community should read chapters 4-7.

[Extreme Book Challenge PMLIB]

I've read a lot of nonfiction books published in the last 5 years, but I think this is one of my favorites, and that's category #12!

[Franc · Rating 4 out of 5]

For how short this book is, it packs an immensely dense arc on the issues of homlessness

[Ben Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was powerful and so effective
HOMELESSNESS IS A HOUSING PROBLEM AND HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT
S/O Coalition for the Homeless

[Marty Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched and insightful exploration of the things we've been led to believe about homelessness in the U.S.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational and data driven. Good juxtaposition to a recent book I read that focuses more on the individual stories of unhoused people in the bay area, as it focuses more on big picture policy issues. Despite how I just made that sound, this book is not dry.

Here is how I tend to rate books:
5 stars - outstanding, would read multiple times and keep in my personal library
4 stars - great book that I thoroughly enjoyed
3 stars - average read but would recommend to others
2 stars - would not recommend to others
1 star - I don't give these out as I would just DNF

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway and was asked to give my honest review.