Rural Homelessness
Rural homelessness has its own distinct profile. There are unique challenges and local solutions to preventing and ending rural homelessness.
Rural homelessness has many of the same root causes as its more visible counterpart urban homelessness: poverty, inadequate housing, domestic violence, mental illness, and the invisible injuries of combat. People living in rural areas are between 1.2 and 2.3 times more likely to be poor than people living in metropolitan areas, and poor rural communities have some of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. Nearly one in five rural counties has a poverty rate of 20% or more. In addition to increased poverty rates, rural communities often have lower numbers of affordable housing units causing many individuals and families in need to live in overcrowded conditions and severely dilapidated structures. Rural households that rent a home are twice as likely to live in substandard housing as their urban counterparts. American Indians in tribal communities live in overcrowded or substandard housing at rates much higher than other Americans.
While the causes of homelessness in rural areas may be the same as those in urban areas, the solutions to homelessness need to take into account the rural landscape. Technology is not the given it has become in urban areas. Cell phones and internet access are not necessarily readily available or reliable. Transportation is major issue as individuals may live far from services. Service providers and communities need to develop creative partnerships to ensure that services are accessible to clients who are spread out and to ensure disparate resources can be pooled to improve affordable and permanent supportive housing options. It is just as important to set numeric targets and measure your results in rural areas as it is in urban areas, but counting homelessness may be more difficult in rural areas and requires a different process than what happens in big cities.
Please review the resources below to learn from communities who are leading the way on ending rural homelessness.
Blog
American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Homelessness spotlighted at Expert Panel
Rural and Frontier Homelessness center stage at expert panel
Programs
Rural Development
Rural Development funds help many individuals living in rural America find the tools they need to find and stay in housing, and ...
Related Research
Cost of Rural Homelessness: Rural Permanent Supportive Housing Cost Analysis
Melany Mondello, Jon Bradley, Tom Chalmers McLaughlin, and Nancy Shore May 2009 This study is the first-ever statewide study of ...
USICH Webpages
Federal Resources for Rural Communities
The federal government is committed to providing resources and support to the 51 million Americans living in nonmetropolitan areas. ...
Ending Rural Homelessness: Advice from Experts in the Field
USICH spoke with two providers, Dreama Shreve of the Appalachian Regional Coalition to End Homelessness and Dr. Tom Simpatico of ...
Using Data to Measure Results: a Rural Community Profile
Clallam County, Washington, is located on the northernmost point of the Olympic Peninsula, three hours away from Seattle, Washington ...
