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Homelessness

Author

Listed:
  • Ayşe İmrohoroğlu

    (University of Southern California)

  • Kai Zhao

    (University of Connecticut)

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of several policies in reducing the aggregate share of homeless in a dynamic general equilibrium model. The model economy is calibrated to capture the most at-risk groups and generates a diverse population of homeless with a significant fraction becoming homeless for short spells due to labor market shocks and a smaller fraction experiencing chronic homelessness due to health shocks. Our policy experiments show housing subsidies to be more effective in reducing the aggregate homeless share, mostly by helping those with short spells, than non-housing policies. For the chronically homeless population, a means-tested expansion of disability income proves to be effective. We also find that some policies that result in higher exit rates from homelessness, such as relaxation of borrowing constraints, help the currently homeless population but lead to a larger homeless share at the steady state by increasing the entry rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayşe İmrohoroğlu & Kai Zhao, 2022. "Homelessness," Working papers 2022-17, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2022-17
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Homelessness
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2023-01-17 16:15:45

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; Housing; Income Shock; Health Shock; General Equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

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