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Homeless in America

April 01 2026

The rest of our interview with Patrick Markee, author of a new book on homelessness in the US. By Sheryle Thomas

The previous issue of the Pavement carried an interview with Patrick Markee, author of Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age, released in December 2025. Markee has worked with the homeless community in New York for two decades and his book, published by Melville House UK, describes homelessness in the US, the structural forces contributing to the crisis and how best to move forward. Below is the second half of the magazine’s talk with Markee in January. 


In your opinion, how is homelessness solved?

The primary solution to homelessness is by addressing the housing affordability crisis. This would involve the government creating more affordable housing – ideally on the social housing model – and providing aid like rental assistance for low-income households. For homeless people living with mental illness and other disabilities, the government should create more supportive housing, including the ‘Housing First’ model that targets street homelessness.


What is the historical context to homelessness in New York?


The US has only had two historical periods of mass homelessness: the Great Depression of the 1930s; and the period that began in the late 1970s in New York City, spread nationwide in the early 1980s and has persisted to the present day. In the early 20th century, in fact, New York City had been the birthplace of vigorous, progressive and successful housing movements that led to the creation of public housing (the American version of social housing), rent control and other reforms. That is one reason that, from the end of the Great Depression until the 1970s, there was no mass homelessness in New York or other American cities. But the capitalist economic crises of the 1970s, which led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs (most of them in manufacturing) and the right-wing politics that emerged in the Reagan era created and fueled a worsening housing affordability crisis – which itself set the stage for the emergence of mass homelessness.


What do you think of Donald Trump's homelessness policy? 

Trump is doubling down on the disastrous right-wing policies that have caused homelessness to persist for decades – and his dangerous proposals will lead to more homelessness. Already his administration has enacted policies that threaten to eliminate funding for successful ‘Housing First’ programmes that provide supportive housing; some 170,000 formerly homeless people could lose their homes as a result of that policy. Trump has also proposed cutbacks to federal housing programmes that could force four million poor Americans to lose their housing aid. He is calling for a more punitive approach to criminalise homelessness.


Describe New York mayor Zohran Mamdani's homelessness policy.

There is optimism in New York City that Mamdani will take a different, more progressive approach than Trump and the previous mayor, Eric Adams. Mamdani, who became mayor in January 2026, has not yet laid out detailed plans on homelessness and housing, but the early signs are hopeful. He has proposed halting rent increases on one million rent-regulated apartments, building more supportive housing and creating a new “community safety” unit to address the problems of homeless people living with mental illness on the streets, in place of the failed criminalisation approach.


What are the unique problems the US faces addressing its housing crisis?

The US government plays only a small and deeply inadequate role in providing affordable housing for low-income households. This comes out of a uniquely American hostility to government’s role in addressing economic and social problems – far too many Americans blame poverty on poor individuals themselves, or think the private market is the only solution. While the US developed a nascent welfare state apparatus in the wake of the Great Depression, it never went as far as in other countries; for example, the US has never had a national health care system. Since the ascendency of right-wing politics in the 1980s under Reagan and continuing through to Trump, even the woefully underfunded welfare state programmes have been slowly dismantled. Thus, while there are ample, proven solutions to the problem of homelessness, what is needed in the US is a forceful, progressive organising effort to overcome the politicians and institutions that oppose those housing-based solutions.

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