Housing and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation: The Ideology of Homelessness

Housing and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (full series)
Pharmaceuticals and Propositions | Housing the Homeless?
The Ideology of Homelessness | Thoughts and Questions

The Ideology of Homelessness

It is worth briefly discussing the “Housing First” approach to homelessness to which the AIDS Healthcare Foundation adheres. Long the predominant public policy framework, Housing First emphasizes providing permanent housing immediately without any preconditions or requirements with respect to sobriety, mental health treatment, or other criteria. The idea is that stable housing must act as an essential precursor to everything else.

Some have questioned Housing First’s effectiveness as a one-size-fits-all solution to homelessness at the societal level, as well as its ability to address the serious personal conditions that often precipitate and/or accompany homelessness. Christopher Rufo, in a 2020 report on Housing First, pointed to a University of California survey from 2019—which had important acknowledged limitations—finding, among other things, that roughly half of unsheltered homeless adults reported that physical health (46 percent), mental health (50 percent), or substance abuse (51 percent) problems had contributed to their loss of housing. “Any effort to reduce homelessness,” Rufo wrote, “must address addiction, mental illness, and social pathologies—not just physical housing, lack of which is frequently a reflection of deeper problems.” The Manhattan Institute’s Stephen Eide has also written extensively on Housing First and its shortcomings.

It is also worth noting that some national advocacy groups—including those that prominently support Housing First—tend to situate homelessness (and what to do about it) within a broader left-wing public policy agenda, which can serve to politicize the issue in ways that are anathema to conservatives.

Consider the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Despite being characterized by the New York Times as a group “with bipartisan roots,” a cursory look at its website reveals stark ideological biases. The alliance believes that “homelessness is primarily the result of structural drivers,” blaming it in part on “systemic racism and discrimination of marginalized groups.” It contends that extensive “decommodification” of the housing sector is required—such as through rent control and social housing—to the point where homes are treated “as a basic right, not a commodity.” It also rather remarkably claims that climate change is a significant factor contributing to homelessness and argues that “climate justice” must be prioritized in any public policy solutions.

Major funders of the National Alliance to End Homelessness in recent years have included the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation ($3.15 million from 2021to 2023) and the Melville Charitable Trust ($1.08 million from 2021 to 2023). Jeff Bezos is also listed as a $500,000+ donor in the alliance’s annual reports each year from 2020 through 2022.

There is also the National Coalition for the Homeless, which has the similar view that “the housing crisis is a symptom of structural inequity, based largely on institutionalized poverty and racism.” Accordingly, it believes that homelessness can only be addressed through “system-wide resources, policy change, and government funding for affordable housing programs.” It equivocates on the contributory impact of substance abuse, claiming that “the relationship between addiction and homelessness is complex and controversial” and only becomes clear in the context of attendant poverty.

Through their shared commitment to the Housing First approach and shared opposition to clearing homeless encampments, the National Coalition for the Homeless began partnering with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in 2022. The coalition even announced that it would be opening its West Coast office at the foundation’s headquarters in Los Angeles. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is also a partner in the coalition’s Bring America Home Now campaign, which declares that “homelessness is inextricably linked to systemic racism” and argues that the ultimate solution essentially lies in a drastic expansion of the government regulatory and welfare state apparatus.

The National Coalition for the Homeless has received significant funding from the Melville Charitable Trust ($407,800 from 2021 to 2023) and the Network for Good ($362,173 from 2021 to 2023). Other notable recent donors have included the National Football League Foundation ($100,000 from 2023 to 2024), the Arabella Advisors–managed New Venture Fund ($50,000 in 2023), and Arc of Justice ($20,000 in 2022). Arc of Justice was formerly known as the Benjamin Fund and is the private foundation of Medea Benjamin, the radical-left co-founder of Code Pink.

In the next installment, homelessness advocacy groups tend to treat homelessness as a systemic societal harm, while minimizing personal struggles.