Provide housing first. Then offer the services needed to maintain self-sufficiency. That’s the new strategy of the Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness. The committee’s program, called SafeHome Philadelphia, is guided by the “Housing First” strategy.

The reasons vary, but the results are the same. Unbearably crowded housing, domestic violence, eviction, addiction, and mental illness drive Philadelphians to live on streets and in shelters.

Annie walks into the transitional housing facility’s learning center determined. Hair pulled back in a scrunchie, an eight-month-old baby clawing at her knees, she answers the question of educational goals the same way so many homeless women do: “First, I’ll get my GED.”

For over two decades the phrase "homeless veteran" called to mind an image of a young – and now aging – male veteran from the Vietnam era.
"Years ago, women made up about two percent of our homeless population nationwide," says Marsha Four, program director for Homeless Veterans Service, a program through the Philadelphia Veterans Multi-Service and Education Center. "Now they make up at least five to six percent of the homeless veterans population."

The image of a homeless veteran is changing.

The face of homelessness in America is changing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, national poverty rates are higher in working women than men. More women with children living are living at or below the poverty line—and they are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.

In the early '80s the Reagan administration favored the idea of solving homelessness locally. Pressure mounted as Americans demanded that homeless issues be addressed by the federal government. As a result, on July 22, 1987, President Reagan signed the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act into law. Since 1987, the McKinney-Vento Act has provided a range of services to local homeless shelters and programs throughout the City of Philadelphia.