How Houston Cut HOMELESSNESS By 63% In Just 10 Years 

I love this guy. He is so proud and happy because he made a difference. Thank him for his service and his example of how to get things done!

Being from LA I was just in Houston for the first time and was extremely impressed of how clean their downtown area was.

There’s nothing this gentleman mentioned in this interview that other municipalities haven’t tried in one way or another to failed ends. Ryan tried to bring it up with asking about Nimby folk and he dodged the question; but the key difference has to be that Houston doesn’t have zoning laws (they do have some deed covenants) but land use isn’t regulated by zoning use laws. That helps developers respond to market demands and keep affordable housing available for all socioeconomic levels.

💯 If we solve poverty, we’ll solve the issues with drug abuse, violence, and many other societal issues. It’s refreshing to see an organization focused on the real issue, and not the symptoms of the issue. Bravo! 👏👏👏

Shows that anything can be done provided political differences are set aside.

Beautiful . Thank you to the city of Houston for doing the right thing unlike California .

This is wonderful! It just shows you what can be done if people work together ❤️

I watched a show where they were explaining in San Francisco does not allow low cost housing.

So beautiful. Way to go Houston. Heartfelt joy and gratitude for the people dedicated to this work. And see in the background of Mike Nichols, the sign "Think". This is how compassionate, proactive people think about problem solving.

Mike is my kind of hero! I pray this model spreads. Thanks for all involved. EH

Born and raised here .... homelessness is still bad but I'm happy about the effort

We need more positive stories like this. I’m so happy that the hill had this guy on.

This story made me emotional not only because my brief stint of political activism inevitably led me into direct contact with homeless people, many of whom were my age, often college educated, and quite intelligent..but because this story is literally the only positive story of the government doing SOMETHING to help average citizens of a community. I literally cannot recall any other story in at least a decade where I can say can say the government acted to actually help non wealthy people...maybe the affordable healthcare act? I have just been so accustomed to the largest protests in history achieving very little or organizations making 0 gains and eventually being hollowed out by establishment interest mouthpeices. First story in a decade that inspires optimism.

I saw an interesting video on the "housing first" principle that is in place in Finland and Mississippi (of all places). There was another city looking to do it, but I cannot remember which (not anywhere in Cali). What I want to hear more about, is how the Vision centers being set up by HUD are doing.

This should be sent to every state governor and every city mayor!!! so amazing!💗

It’s too hot in Houston to leave that housing. Good on everyone who helped this program be successful.

What a fantastic interview. Kudos to Houston. I'm glad other cities are reaching out. Hopefully at least some of them can replicate this success.

Wow! Look at what we are capable of on a COMMUNITY level.. Bravo Houston!! 👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼 All local communities should take your lead, verbatim! THIS is what America is generally supposed to look like.. Coming together to find local solutions that effect the country as a whole!

What a great segment. And great work in Houston! Notice very practical, the government does not take the lead but is providing funding.

This the way it should be

There is no reason for poverty or homelessness in the West other than corrupted officials and narcissistic committees. When we in the West stand up against corruption and narcissism, any problem can be resolved. This man is neither a narcissist nor is he corrupted. Thank God for men and women like this man!

housing the homeless works. these folks are doing amazing work.

Just wow. After returning from Iraq with TBI, I was unable to hold a job. Eventually my savings ran out, and I lost the house I'd been paying on for fifteen years and ended up homeless. To those who haven't been, you just cannot know. Back then, one-third of all homeless in the United States of America were Veterans. President Obama did so much for America's veterans; his detractors deliberately overlook, and his supporters did not think his achievements worthy of notice!

Thank you for covering this important topic

Thank you for this hopeful report and congratulations to the fine peoole in Houston.

What a brilliant way to solve a problem like homelessness. How can a person deal with life properly if they have nowhere to live? Well done Mike Nichols and Houston.

God Bless Mike Nichols. I wish him many, many blessings. He is a good man.

To be fair, I live in Houston, and it has skyrocketed within the last two years. Everyone notices. You can't solve homelessness under the current administration's actions no matter how hard local governments try.

Great content. This program should be forwarded to every major urban area. It’s uniting not dividing.

Bravo! This is what journalism is all about!

VERY important segment here! I like this! And also the thing about the Oakland program (expired now?) that reduced gun violence by 50% with a similar idea behind the 5-point approach.

The only tragedy here is that this story is the exception rather than the rule.

For The Hill: What do other large cities (pick one or two) see in Huston's approach that they don't want to do? Do they say Houston is making claims based on falsified data?

There's going to be a lot more homeless in the future if the economy keeps going this way

Great segment! This more stories like this, please!

Problem is other cities don’t want to solve the problem. It’s all about the $$$$. NYC and Ca are prime examples. Follow the $ - pols take in cash from the programs funded

Excellent and fascinating segment! So good to hear about people working together to help each other be successful. Very well timed reminder of what we can do when we put our minds and resources towards bettering the lives of people in our community. Thank you!

Rural neglect while promoting Urbanization is the source of homelessness. Outsourcing manufacturing is another issue. It's so expensive to pay for housing in urban environment. The money that would house a person in urban setting is enough to cater for 400 people in rural communities. The number of people becoming homelessness each day, no government can afford it in urban centers. Excessive or regulation is also an issue mentioned by investors.

That was a great story. Gives me hope for the future. I’d like to see more inspiring content like that. Awesome job.

In ten years? Homelessness could have been ended with the amount of money that was invested in war. Billions spent on weaponry all to aide those in Congress to be richer as they have shares in those weapons manufacturers companies. It's a crying shame

Love this! This gives me a glimmer of hope parts of this country can help its fellow man.

I love love love Houston. When they take in homeless in shelters, they provide jobs, and mental Health. They then create a trust where you have to deposit money every paycheck. This helps the homeless learn finances, budgeting and getting back on their feet and stay there. Texas is a pick yourself up by your boot straps state. It doesn’t mean they don’t help you. It means they teach you how to help yourself ❤

UK Government need to check this out!

If you watch a movie from the 30's-60's single adult men lived in boarding houses and single women often lived together in a boarding room or an apartment. Couples lived in an apartment or a modest house if they had children.

We needed this! It seems like the world has gone crazy lately, good news is... good

Great work!

We relocated to Houston from Seattle this past week. The difference in homelessness is staggering. No encampments (that I have observed). 🤔

I think this can be replicated in coastal liberal cities, if we relax zoning restrictions. Zoning law makes property super expensive in these areas, and the most restrictive zoning laws are in coastal liberal cities, like San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle. This makes the real estate needed to actually house the homeless really expensive to lay one's hands on. I think this was kind of addressed in 7:54 . The thing about Houston, is that it has absolutely no zoning laws. And I think that helps in the procurement of spaces for housing the homeless. Integration into community, 8:40 , is absolutely essential too. I've actually talked to a few homeless people a couple of months back, and that's one major concern they pointed out.

Hero Effort + Champion Results ! Very Impressive ! Congrats !

Good work!

I live in Houston, this is hard to believe this every time i pass by the McDonalds by the greyhound station in downtown it’s filled with homeless ppl..

What we a sweet man! I hope this is replicated in areas suffering from large homelessness populations!

The world needs to take notice. I’m in northern Alberta Canada, and we have a serious homelessness issue, which means too many people die in winter here. We have lots to learn from you folks in Houston. Kudos!

Just wonderful!!

Houston had a flood of biblical proportions in 2017 - I promise you that flood had more to do with getting rid of homeless people than anything else. Which is ironic, because most of Houston's homeless problem stemmed from the flooding in New Orleans. Thousands of people migrated to Houston during that flooding.

CA needs so badly to do this!! Even our little town in NorCal is infested with homelessness which has led to increased drugs and crime. Not at all like the place it was even 5 years ago.

Wow! I love this story. I hope other jurisdictions follow suit. Provide stable and real housing first to the deserving homeless people. There are a lot of homeless people who just only need that small opportunity to start over. They are the ones who should be helped to reduce the homeless and maintain the reduction.

Awesome!!

Good for Houston👍

Brilliant ideas, I love the work together efforts between government, NGOs and the faith based community. Very intelligent works. Hope this spreads to other cities and states.

Finally some positive and invigorating story

How to reduce homelessness: provide the homeless with housing. Who woulda thought?

Wow... Wait... So hold on... So you give homeless people permanent places to live, and they're no longer homeless? Mind blown!

I hate that I’ve become so cynical and untrusting. It’s really nice to think there’s at least one place, one system, that is trying to do good in spite of it all. Imagine if our politicians could work together this way. Or if people in general could, but more often. Look at the real rewards that come from genuinely working as a team towards a shared goal, or to prevent a shared disaster. The kind that isn’t focused on highlighting its MVP at every turn. The kind that’s not interested in making the other team lose as terribly as it can.

Seattle’s homeless problem is TERRIBLE!!! Definitely could learn a lesson from Houston!

What a special man

They did through bus tickets.

This made me smile :)

I loved this so much. Surprise surprise the best solutions for homelessness is to give people houses. Go Houston!!

The guardian article “bused out how America moves the homeless” it’s worth checking out.

Houston has a crime problem. If it found a way to take care of their horrible homicide rate I would move back to Houston. I was raised there. I have family there. I am a Houstonian. I did my community service work for a DUI I got in Houston and it was amazing. I got a chance to visit my Mom in that area right before she died. I love Dallas and Austin too. God Bless Texas.

I dunno about this segment. I live in North Houston and see homeless all the time. Pretty much every main intersection has homeless soliciting. If there has been a reduction it hasn't been in our area. They do move the homeless around. When its rodeo season or another big function in the downtown area they will move the homeless out to the surrounding areas.

Imagine that the cure for the homeless is giving people homes.

Mike Nichols has a very noble job. Homelessness is surely money better spent than world police, no child or female should be homeless at a minimum. What a great guy. Homelessness should not exist in this century

"It worked because we are in Texas and not California. Y'all cannot underestimate how important that is."

Finland also, has put housing first ,with good results!!

Wow, actively applying compassion to this issue. Clearly it's possible, so why are so many other states criminalizing people who deserve real sustainable help.

You should check out the guardian report on homelessness it has some great graphics and charts.

They bussed them to California where the weather is nicer and the benefits are bigger?

Very progressive policy and it should be the standard across the country. This is a MUCH more difficult problem to solve in california because property is so expensive there and there's just enough housing.

Hooray for incrementalism

we need better terms than 'homeless' because many street people have apartments. I have no problem with functional people who don't want a location thing them down. The problem is self destructive people who expand their destructiveness beyond themselves.

We need Homeless Campuses with the Facilities that they need. If you put Drug and Alcohol dependent people in Apartments complexes with responsible working Citizens it will cause problems !!!. Build housing Campuses out side of family Neighborhoods !!!. The ones that are successful can eventually integrate !!!.

I’m conservative but fully support getting our people housing. Understanding long term financial, societal and generational costs, it is way more effective to get people the services they need. It’s BS that our govt, no matter what side you are on milks the homeless industry and people just get paid to spin their wheels and get burned out.

Yo Ryan...look into what Finland did to address their homeless problem. They have the blueprint to start at.

COSTS were the best part of this discussion, wish it'd been the main part instead of the tail end.

NY has a similar program but on a smaller scale...I imagine the NY developers are different from Houston developers.

What’s amazing is that Texas is a pro-landlord state, and they have 6,800 housed in apartments where landlords are accepting hud vouchers. Amazing they can house the homeless and still be pro-landlord. It seems like some states think the way to help the most vulnerable is to make laws that are pro-tenant. This example makes one think a little about those assumptions.

Encouraging!

The cost of living in Houston is way lower than LV or LA. A one bedroom apartment in LV right now is averaging about $2000 a month. In Houston the same place is less than $1500. LA is worse and NY is about $4000 for a one bedroom. If you are a single mom making minimum wage you cannot afford to live in Houston unless you have a roommate. It is a sad state of affairs.

Fkn awesome!!!!

Want to solve the problems of your country? Get rid of your politicians! The 'how' is up to you.

Homess shelter built in my neighborhood. I lost $40,000 in my condo value overnight.

Example of saying nothing in a calm, confident, and articulate way.

its time we become a great society end solve these issues of poverty

85 percent still housed so are we going to support that for the rest of their lives?

WOW!!! In Texas!! Who'da thunk it??? If TEXAS can do it, the rest of the states ought to be able to accomplish the same.

That's weird because I went through downtown the other day and the homeless camps were the most I've ever seen in 40 years!!!! Looks like it's going to be another California.

Compassion?

Nyc can do that also by provided real affordable houses to city workers that are making less then 48k and homeless people also but they wont do that they rather have fraudulent affordable houses lottery where the minimum salary for those apartments are 80k plus. Nyc give sweet deals to real estates corporate to create affordable appartments where the minimum salary is like 80k make no sense