Homelessness in the United States
With over half a million people in the United States experiencing homelessness, the growth of this population outpaces the new supportive housing units being built to serve them. America’s homelessness crisis has been deteriorating over the last few decades but saw a dramatic worsening through the pandemic. Patterns of regulation in communities across the country have led to a lack of affordable housing, causing a boom in people experiencing homelessness. Fearing declines in home values despite evidence to the contrary, neighborhood groups pressure their elected officials to veto new affordable housing developments. When new projects do successfully circumvent NIMBY red tape, often zoning restrictions still reduce the number of housing units provided and individuals served.
So how did we get here?
The Housing Act of 1937 led to the construction of America’s first public housing; a plan further expanded 12 years later. Programs to house the less fortunate continued until 1974, when new government policies ended them. Programs aimed at improving the quality and safety of affordable housing ultimately had the opposite effect, reducing the number of units available. Additionally, the 1980s saw mass closings of mental health facilities, pushing many of their residents to the streets and putting extra strain on an already weak system.
Although the cost of housing America’s unhoused population may seem like an overwhelming drain on taxpayer money, the expense of emergency services for individuals living on the streets ultimately exceeds the cost of subsidized housing. When formerly unhoused individuals can settle into long-term housing, they experience improvements in their mental and physical health and increased employment opportunities leading to future stability and success.
The City of Los Angeles’ 2016 Proposition HHH Supportive Housing Loan Program seeks to address creation of new residential construction for unhoused individuals, but to date only 8,091 housing units have been designated HHH funding; meanwhile there are almost 70 thousand people in Los Angeles experiencing homelessness on any given night.
Design Concept
Expanding on the idea of efficiency in repetition and in response to Los Angeles’ ongoing and growing challenge of housing its massive, unhoused population, KTGY’s Research and Development Studio designed The Essential, a concept proposing a prototypical 12-story concrete building with steel modular units, housing 335 people and providing essential support services. Fitting within a 100-foot-by-150-foot site, The Essential is designed to flexibly accommodate up to 14 different, underutilized sites within the Skid Row neighborhood, providing housing and services to the unhoused.
The Essential proposes finding underutilized sites in communities experiencing significant homeless populations. While it may seem like unhoused individuals are transient in nature, many feel strong connections to their communities and have lived on the streets within a particular area for an extended period. In addition, services and resources designed to support unhoused individuals are often concentrated in certain areas. By developing housing in proximity, individuals can have easy access to both housing and essential services.
Standardized and Easily Repeatable Design
To make a greater impact on the daunting task of housing the unhoused, a standardized and repeatable approach can streamline the process and reduce timelines. Replication can minimize the number of details created, reduce the time spent reviewing drawings, and mitigate future negative feedback by incorporating lessons learned. By combining modular design on the upper levels of the building with a prototype strategy for the building as a whole, The Essential suggests a methodology that can generate a larger number of homes in a shorter period of time. While the upper levels remain identical from site to site, the ground level has a flexible design, which can be used on sites where either the long or short dimension faces the public way.
