<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4Pvyq1_1Gvh2TKK00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4Pvyq1_1Gvh2TKK00" width="1200" height="800" ><figcaption>Sophia Palmeri/DAILY</figcaption></figure>IIn 2023, the state of Washington’s transportation department spent $643,000 to clear a homeless encampment beside Interstate 5 in Lacey and fill the site with hundreds of boulders. The boulders kept people from returning, but they did not address why people were living there in the first place. The boulders are an example of hostile architecture, a type of public design that prevents people from sitting or sleeping. Other examples also include divided benches, spikes on ledges and fences around underpasses. The Lacey boulders case shows how governments investing in hostile architecture respond to homelessness: They pay to move people out of public view instead of into homes.Federal and local governments should stop funding hostile architecture and encampment sweeps and instead spend that money on permanent housing efforts. Boulders and camping bans only hide homelessness without reducing it.Since June 2024, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can punish people for sleeping outside even when they have nowhere else to go, well more than 100 cities have passed or strengthened camping bans. A July 2025 executive order then directed the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation to consider giving priority to discretionary grants for cities that enforce camping bans. As such, camping bans measure success by whether the public can see tents, not by whether people have stable homes.In July, the Ypsilanti City Council voted to clear an encampment at Bell Kramer even though the city has no overnight shelter for adults or families. Officials can take credit for an emptied campsite even when the people who lived there still have nowhere to go.The push for hostile architecture sometimes starts with individual businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged the Supreme Court to allow camping bans, arguing that crime near encampments is harmful to businesses. Business owners in Anchorage, Alaska, and San Diego say encampments drive away their customers and increase vandalism. Although their complaints may be valid, hostile design only pushes people onto public land, where the cost of moving them again falls on taxpayers.In 2019, Tacoma, Wash. spent about $3.9 million on clearing and managing encampments, roughly $6,208 per unsheltered person. The costs worsen following a sweep, namely because displacement cuts people off from preventative medical care and leads to more overdoses and hospital stays. Most unhoused patients rely on Medicaid or have no insurance at all, so taxpayers end up paying for much of that emergency care.One alternative to moving people from block to block is giving them homes through a Housing First approach, which provides permanent housing without first requiring sobriety, drug treatment or employment. In a randomized trial of Housing First in Denver, 77% of chronically homeless participants remained housed after three years. Compared to the control group, they had 40% fewer arrests and 40% fewer emergency room visits. The reduced jail stays, shelter nights and emergency services that participants no longer needed offset about half of the program’s cost. Denver’s net cost per person is close to what Tacoma spent per person on encampment responses. For roughly the same price, Denver gave unhoused people homes, while Tacoma moved their unhoused people from one block to another.Housing First works as long as governments keep paying for it. Finland, using Housing First policies, cut homelessness from about 18,000 people in 1987 to fewer than 5,000 in 2019 by steadily expanding permanent housing. Then, in 2024, the government cut housing benefits and halved its funding for programs aimed at preventing evictions. Homelessness consequently rose in 2024 for the first time in 11 years and rose another 20% in 2025. Finland’s reversal in progress shows that the gains from housing are contingent on stable funding. Cutting housing to save money only sends more people back to the benches and underpasses that cities then pay to clear.HUD’s roughly $4 billion Continuum of Care program — the main federal grant for local homelessness services — has historically spent roughly 90% of its money on permanent housing. In November 2025, HUD tried to cap that share at 30%, but a federal judge struck down the attempt in July. HUD’s 2026 funding notice would shift more than $1 billion away from existing programs and put at least 97,000 formerly homeless people at risk of losing their homes. When one agency can undo years of progress in a single funding cycle, the people it helped and housed are the ones who pay.HUD argued in April that Housing First itself is the problem. For about 20 years, HUD encouraged the communities it funds to house people without preconditions. However, HUD Secretary Scott Turner says the approach leaves people stuck with their addictions or mental illnesses and dependent on government assistance, and HUD officials want people to enter treatment for addiction or mental illness before they receive housing.But Denver’s trial shows that housing improves an individual’s long-term recovery. Once housed, participants made 155% more outpatient visits and went to detox programs 65% less often. A person with a stable address is able to maintain appointments and fill prescriptions in a way that a person moving between homeless camps cannot.Housing First depends on rental assistance to pay for the homes it provides, and that assistance is scarce: 76% of low-income renters who need federal rental assistance go without it because of a lack of funding. Therefore, Housing First has never had the money to work at a national scale.Congress is currently negotiating final funding for fiscal year 2027, and lawmakers have already shown that they can set rules for the program. In February, they required HUD to fund at least 60% of each community’s needs to keep its existing housing programs running for another year, down from 90% in 2024. The 2027 bill should direct HUD to renew existing permanent housing grants and bar HUD from capping permanent housing or rewarding communities that enforce camping bans. Congress should then amend the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the federal law behind the Continuum of Care program, to require that most of the program’s money go to permanent housing. A rule written into the law would prevent administrative inconsistencies within HUD funding allocations. Cities and counties should stop budgeting for hostile architecture and move that money into permanent supportive housing. At the cost of Denver’s program, the $643,000 Washington spent in Lacey could have housed more than 40 people for a year. Though states cannot match federal funding or national coordination, they can fund Housing First programs like Denver’s. State action is faster and does not depend on which administration controls HUD, yet Housing First still needs to become a national policy to reach everyone who needs it. Governments already spend money on homelessness, and they should spend it on homes instead of on hiding the people who need them.Kai Farjo is an Opinion Columnist who writes about political economy, international politics and culture in his column “Material Matters.” He can be reached at kaifarjo@umich.edu.</div></body>

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IIn 2023, the state of Washington’s transportation department spent $643,000 to clear a homeless encampment beside Interstate 5 in Lacey and fill the site with hundreds of boulders. The boulders kept people from returning, but they did not address why people were living there in the first place. The...

America should stop funding hostile architecture and instead fund homes

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IIn 2023, the state of Washington’s transportation department spent $643,000 to clear a homeless encampment beside Interstate 5 in Lacey and fill the site 

America should stop funding hostile architecture and instead fund homes

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