City Journal Audio Who We Are: Homelessness Crisis
Feb 25, 2026
Stephen Eide, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow who studies homelessness and mental illness, reflects on how family breakdown and untreated psychiatric disorders drive street homelessness. He critiques housing-first simplifications. Short, pointed conversations cover limits of voluntary care, when coercion becomes necessary, and the tradeoffs between liberty, public safety, and realistic urban policy.
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How The Term Homeless Shaped Policy
- The term homeless was deliberately popularized to reframe the problem and push subsidized housing as the primary solution.
- Activists in the 1970s replaced stigmatizing labels like bum with homeless to focus public attention on housing-first policies.
Family Failure More Than Housing Shortage
- Homelessness often follows the breakdown of family and informal supports rather than simply lack of affordable housing.
- Eide contrasts Mississippi's high poverty but low street homelessness with cities where cheap, low-quality housing disappeared due to regulation.
Subsidized Apartment Failed For A Severely Ill Relative
- Raphael Mangual recounts a relative with severe mental illness who repeatedly refused or abandoned free subsidized housing.
- The woman cycled between streets and hospitals until she was eventually civilly committed, showing housing alone didn't help.