Addressing homelessness to achieve equitable urban futures

Homelessness is the most extreme form of poverty and social exclusion, and it exists in every country world-wide. Local, national, and international institutional frameworks, including the Sustainable Development Goals, often do not specifically address the issue of homelessness and continue to leave the most vulnerable further and further behind. Global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine show us the importance of both housing infrastructure and comprehensive support services like access to healthcare and trauma-informed care.

The Institute of Global Homelessness (IGH) and UN-Habitat are collaborating to bring evidence-based best practice and policy to the forefront of the international conversation around sustainable and equitable cities. This interactive event will feature key successes and barriers to addressing homelessness, drawn from IGH’s first cohort of thirteen Vanguard Cities. Attendees will hear perspectives from the Vanguard Cities themselves, as well as research findings from the Ending Street Homelessness in Vanguard Cities across the Globe: An International Comparative Study. IGH engaged an independent, third party research team to conduct the international comparative study to identify common learnings across all thirteen different contexts and the study’s final report was published in March 2022. Attendees will leave the session with specific ideas on how policymakers and practitioners from all sectors can take action to increase the access of all to the right to housing and the right to the city.

IGH’s first global cohort of Vanguard Cities ran from 2017-2022. Each cohort city set specific, local goals on homelessness and progressed towards those goals while learning from each other about what worked, what didn’t, and what can be done about homelessness going forward. For the Vanguard Cities, IGH partnered with a diverse range of stakeholders in each city including city, state, and national governments, homeless organizations, collective impact groups, and other civil society associations. The Vanguard Cities were located across all six continents, including one city in Africa, one in Asia, two in Australia, four in Europe, three in North America, and two in South America.

We will share key learnings from the cities, including enablers to progress as well as common barriers to progress. Contextual variables such as political will, financial resources, available housing supply, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will also be highlighted. IGH and UN-Habitat will share about our collaborative effort to take these learnings and help more local and national stakeholders address homelessness through data collection, policy frameworks, and the implementation of evidence-based best practices.

Ample time for questions and answers, interventions, and dialogue will conclude the session.