Homelessness and Housing Market Condition in the United States

Abstract

The study estimated the relationship between the homelessness rates, the housing market factors, and the socio-economic factors in the country level, regional level, and the state level in the United States from 2007 to 2016. The results show that the housing price index, personal expenditure on housing utilities, rental vacancy rate, poverty rate, number of job loss and income inequality are significant determinants of the homelessness in the country level. For the regional level, the West had the highest homelessness rate intercept while the South West is the region with the lowest intercept. Housing price, the expenditure on housing utilities and poverty rate are the factors determining the homelessness rate in the regional level. When the study adds the fixed effects of fifty states to the model, the result shows that rental vacancy rate, number of job loss and the income inequality are three factors that can explain the change in homeless population number in the state level. To slow down the growing homelessness in the country level, the economic policy should be focusing at poverty reduction, healing people who suffered from job loss, and changing the tax policy to increase income equality. For the housing market, the government may consider the policy to support the expansion of low-cost housing units in term of both fiscal and monetary policies.