The relationship between homelessness and mental health conditions is complex and often broadly misunderstood. An estimated 20 to 25 percent
of the unhoused population in the United States lives with chronic and severe mental illness, compared with 6 percent of the general population. Public conversations sometimes treat mental illness as the causal factor of homelessness, which is not validated by evidence and undermines crucial dialogue about homelessness as a “social problem with complex and multifactorial origins.”
It is important to note that mental health conditions and homelessness have a bi-directional relationship. Though some people find themselves unhoused due in part to untreated mental health conditions, the daily lived experience of homelessness itself creates, exacerbates, and interacts with mental health conditions.
