Before the economic downturn, 3.5 million Americans, including 1.4 million children, were homeless as a result of scaled back housing policies. As the mortgage crisis worsened, the number of working families slipping into homelessness has continued to rise. With a new administration in power, advocates of low-income housing hope President Obama will include a $45 billion housing proposal in the stimulus package to begin to remedy the situation. Patrick Markee, the senior policy analyst at The Coalition for the Homeless and Lizzy Ratner, contributing writer to The Nation investigate the roots and possible solutions to the problem.

Read Markee and Ratner’s recent article on the homelessness crisis here.

—Gabriela Resto-Montero

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