» In the richest country in the world, more than 500,000 Americans are homeless each night, with millions more experiencing homelessness through the course of each year.

» People of color—particularly Black Americans and Native Americans—experience homelessness at dramatically higher rates than their white peers, even when compared to the proportions of those living in poverty. As a result, people of color have limited access to opportunities for wealth accumulation.

» In fact, in no county in the U.S. can a household afford a two-bedroom unit (i.e., not paying more than 30% of income) on the minimum wage or Social Security/Disability.

» Millions of Americans experiencing homelessness remain uninsured, with limited access to health care and behavioral health services. » The stock of housing affordable to those at the lowest incomes has been slashed by more than 80% over the past 50 years. » Homelessness has too often been viewed as a personal failure, rather than a societal one.

» Federal policy to address homelessness has been overly incremental in nature, attending to the most obvious symptoms while ignoring the root causes. The result has been a complete neglect of large-scale, systemic, and lasting solutions.