Roof Over Your Head Day

What the day is

Roof Over Your Head Day is observed on December 3. It asks for gratitude about housing, which is worth rather more if it comes with some understanding of why other people lack it.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented.

The evidence on homelessness has moved considerably in recent years, and the popular explanations have not kept up. Comparisons across American cities and regions find that local rates of homelessness track housing costs and vacancy rates closely, and track rates of addiction and mental illness poorly. Regions with severe addiction problems and inexpensive housing have relatively little homelessness. Expensive coastal cities with comparable rates of individual hardship have a great deal of it.

This does not make individual circumstances irrelevant. Addiction, illness and family breakdown strongly predict which particular person loses housing. They do not explain how many people in a given place lose it, which is governed by how tight and expensive the housing market is. The two questions get confused almost constantly.

The counting is imperfect as well. The annual national estimate rests on a point-in-time count conducted on a single night in January, which is understood to undercount people staying with others, living in vehicles, or moving between temporary arrangements.

Affordability is measured as cost burden, generally the point at which housing consumes more than thirty percent of income. A large and growing share of American renters sit above that line, which is the same pressure showing up well before anyone loses a home.

How to take part

• Give to a local organization doing rehousing or eviction prevention rather than to a national brand.
• Donate what shelters actually ask for, which is usually socks, underwear and hygiene supplies.
• Find out what housing is being built in your area, and what is blocking it.
• Support eviction prevention, which costs far less than rehousing somebody afterward.
• Check your own roof while the subject is in front of you: gutters, flashing, and any stain on an upstairs ceiling.