In the United States, approximately 150,000 families with 330,000 children stay in a homeless shelter each year (Solari et al. 2016). Millions more are housing insecure and at risk of homelessness. The family homelessness problem in the United States is large but solvable,1 and solutions are known to have broader benefits for children’s well-being, quality of life, and long-term life outcomes. Solutions to family homelessness may even yield net cost savings to governments. Yet the problem persists for two main reasons: political will and artificial budget divisions. State and local governments can use the pay- for-success (PFS) model to finance public services (box 1) to help overcome these hurdles.
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