By Vanguard Staff
The U.S. housing and homelessness crisis is increasingly defined not by visible street encampments but by widespread housing instability among working families, particularly those with children, according to reporting by The Guardian and the research it cites.
In a recent in-depth Guardian analysis, journalist Brigid Schulte documents how families experiencing repeated moves, evictions and unsafe housing conditions often fall outside official homelessness counts while enduring many of the same hardships. Because such families are frequently doubled up, living in temporary rentals or cycling through short-term arrangements, they are largely invisible in federal and local data, even as homelessness reached an all-time recorded high in 2024.
Housing researchers cited by the Guardian report that eviction rates have spiked in many metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, as rents and housing prices continue to climb while wages lag behind the cost of living.
Families with children are among the most vulnerable, with instability leading to chronic school absences, frequent school changes, behavioral challenges and lower academic performance.
“You can see these children’s not just present, but future being strangled,” journalist and author Brian Goldstone told the Guardian, describing the cumulative damage that housing insecurity inflicts on children’s development and long-term prospects.
Studies referenced in the reporting indicate that eviction and housing instability can cause children to fall as much as a year behind academically, particularly in reading and math, and significantly reduce the likelihood of high school graduation.
Health impacts are also substantial. Infants without stable housing face higher risks of being underweight and experiencing long-term health complications, while very young children show developmental delays at triple the rate of their stably housed peers.
Despite these trends, the Guardian reports that federal housing policy has increasingly framed homelessness as a problem driven primarily by mental illness or substance use, rather than affordability.
Housing experts interviewed in the reporting dispute that premise, pointing instead to a widening structural gap between household incomes and the cost of housing.
“The reason we’re seeing record-breaking homelessness is because of a basic mismatch between people’s incomes and what it costs to have a place to live,” Goldstone told the Guardian. “That chasm is growing wider and wider.”
The Guardian’s reporting also highlights racial disparities embedded in the housing system. Black families face higher eviction rates than any other racial group, regardless of income, and Black women experience eviction at roughly twice the rate of white women.
Research cited shows that nearly half of eviction court cases involve single-mother households, reflecting how housing precarity intersects with gender, race and caregiving responsibilities.
Contrary to persistent stereotypes, housing-insecure families are overwhelmingly working families. The Guardian notes that many parents cycle through multiple jobs and side work, yet remain unable to secure stable housing because rents exceed what wages and public subsidies can cover, especially in fast-growing or gentrifying regions.
In many cities, housing voucher programs are effectively closed, leaving families on waitlists for years with no realistic short-term relief.
The reporting identifies public assistance systems as compounding the crisis through rigid eligibility rules. Requirements that parents prove steady employment before qualifying for childcare or housing assistance often create circular barriers that prevent families from stabilizing either work or housing.
“There are so many impossible catch-22s before you can get any help,” Sherri McCoy, a mutual aid organizer assisting housing-insecure families, told the Guardian. “It gets to a point that it’s a catch-44.”
Some local interventions have shown promise. The Guardian details school-based eviction prevention programs in Atlanta that embed legal and social work support in high-eviction zones. These programs have helped keep students housed while improving attendance and academic outcomes. However, federal funding cuts now threaten their continuation and expansion.
Michael Lucas, executive director of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, told the Guardian that despite funding losses, advocates are continuing the work. “It’s going to be harder,” he said. “But we can’t walk away.”
Housing advocates cited in the reporting argue that effective responses must address affordability directly through rental assistance, eviction prevention and expanded housing supply, rather than punitive or behavioral frameworks. Research from institutions including New York University shows that housing conditions and access to subsidies, not addiction or mental illness, are the strongest predictors of whether families end up in shelters.
“It’s almost impossible to find your way out of poverty these days,” Kate Barrand, president and CEO of Horizons for Homeless Children, told the Guardian. “The system is built to hold them down.”
As eviction filings rise and assistance programs contract, the Guardian’s reporting underscores a central reality of the current housing crisis: millions of families are not falling into homelessness because they stop working or fail to comply with social norms, but because the housing market has become structurally disconnected from the incomes of those expected to live within it.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
Categories:
Breaking News Housing State of California
Tags:
Brian Goldstone Eviction family homelessness Homelessness Housing Affordability Housing Crisis Housing Voucher Programs public policy The Guardian