Michele Steeb

Michele Steeb is the founder of the Free Up Foundation and author of Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic, based on her 13 years as CEO of Northern California’s largest and most comprehensive program for homeless women and children.

A nationally recognized thought leader on homelessness, Michele brings decades of leadership and policy experience rooted in real-world impact. She has consistently advanced reforms that dismantle failing systems and champion models rooted in human dignity, personal accountability, and holistic recovery. As Michele often says, “We must build a homelessness system that sees the whole person—not just their lack of housing—but their potential to recover, grow, and prosper.”

Michele consults with communities and public policy organizations nationwide, including Discovery Institute, where she currently serves as a Senior Fellow of their Fix Homelessness Initiative. As a consultant, she guides leaders in developing place-based strategies that move beyond "housing first" to focus on healing—addressing addiction, mental illness, trauma, and the personal restoration necessary for lasting independence.

Her insights have been featured across national platforms, including The Oprah Winfrey Show (2008) and Dr. Phil (2024), as well as in USA Today, The Washington Post, New York Post, FoxNews.com, The Daily Caller, Newsweek, The Federalist, and more.

Michele believes true compassion means empowering individuals to reclaim their lives with structure, safety, and support— not abandoning them to deteriorate on the streets in the name of personal autonomy. Her work centers on restoring purpose, responsibility, and human connection for both those experiencing homelessness and the communities burdened by it.

Appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the State’s Prison Industry Authority (2012–2020), Michele helped replicate her transitional model for women exiting prison.

She has received numerous national awards for her work to build systems that deliver human restoration and public renewal.

Archives

The Statistical Gimmicks Hiding America’s Homelessness Crisis

_{Center on Wealth & Poverty and Michele Steeb
October 1, 2026}

The official U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development homelessness count is 746,000 people. But the real number is closer to 1.5 million. Why the discrepancy? Because for over a decade, HUD has been employing clever gimmicks that exclude hundreds of thousands of people experiencing homelessness from their numbers. Now, HUD is changing course with meaningful reforms. Senior Fellow Michele Steeb explains. Read “HUD’s Homelessness Reforms Put Human Lives Ahead of Housing Bureaucracy” by Michele Steeb …

The Statistical Gimmicks Hiding America’s Homelessness Crisis

_{Center on Wealth & Poverty and Michele Steeb
October 1, 2026}

HUD’s Homelessness Reforms Put Human Lives Ahead of Housing Bureaucracy

_{Michele Steeb
September 29, 2026}

On Sept. 16, the First Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to move forward with desperately needed reforms to the nation’s homelessness system. After months of litigation by the Homeless Industrial Complex to repeatedly block these reforms, the decision allows HUD to redefine success and fund the programs that generate the greatest success in moving the homeless toward recovery, restoration and self-sufficiency. And not a moment too soon. For more than a decade, federal homelessness policy has centered heavily on permanent housing placement, while the measures used to define and count homelessness have often obscured important differences between who is counted as homeless and who is being served through …

We’re Ignoring the Cause of Homelessness, and How to Solve It

_{Michele Steeb
September 16, 2026}

Owning a home, or at least having one, has long been considered an essential part of the American dream. But what if Americans judged success not by whether people had housing, but by whether they discovered — or rediscovered — who they were created to become? Imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who could be strengthening cities like New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles had local leaders invested in systems designed to restore lives and cultivate human flourishing, rather than embracing the federal government’s Housing First approach adopted in 2013. Housing First made housing placement the primary intervention and measure of success, while removing expectations for treatment, sobriety, employment or progress toward self-sufficiency. In doing so, it too often …

Michele Steeb Talks HUD’s Treatment First Toolkit on NTD Newsroom

_{Editor and Michele Steeb
August 19, 2026}

Senior Fellow Michele Steeb appeared on NTD Newsroom to discuss the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new Treatment First Toolkit. On August 12, HUD released “Best Practices Toolkit: Addressing Homelessness and Addiction through ‘Treatment First.'” The Toolkit addresses the insufficiencies of Housing First to address the problems faced by a large population of the homeless who suffer from an addiction: A “Treatment First” model prioritizes coordinated and accountability-driven engagement in evidence-based treatment and recovery support services, to ensure access to the comprehensive and coordinated care necessary for homeless individuals with addiction to achieve and sustain self-sufficiency. “It’s a policy …

Michele Steeb Talks HUD’s Treatment First Toolkit on NTD Newsroom

_{Center on Wealth & Poverty and Michele Steeb
August 19, 2026}

America’s Homelessness System Must Pursue Self-Sufficiency, Not Simply Housing

_{Michele Steeb
July 6, 2026}

For more than a decade, America’s homelessness system has largely measured success by a single metric: whether someone is housed. In the process, what should have been a milestone on the journey to self-sufficiency became the destination itself. Housing is important, but making it the finish line set the bar devastatingly low for both the system and the people it serves. We now routinely confuse housing placement with transformation and occupancy with human flourishing. As a result, too many people remain trapped in addiction, untreated mental illness, dependency, and isolation, yet are counted as successes because the system measures where they sleep rather than whether they are healing, rebuilding, and moving toward self-sufficiency. This was never what most Americans …

Homekey Audit Exposes California’s Real Homelessness Crisis: Failed Governance

_{Michele Steeb
June 15, 2026}

California lawmakers blocked legislation requiring a comprehensive audit of the state’s multibillion-dollar Homekey program. Fortunately, a nonprofit news site undertook the very investigation state leaders refused to demand. The newly-released findings sharply undercut Gov. Gavin Newsom’s repeated claims that his pandemic-era Homekey program has been a “phenomenal success.” Built on roughly 250 projects and more than 100 public-records requests, the two-year investigation exposed a familiar pattern in Newsom’s governance style: massive spending, glowing political rhetoric, weak oversight, and deeply underwhelming results. In a state already plagued by oversight failures involving Medicaid, hospice care, in-home supportive services, and homelessness …

Housing First Is a Disaster. I Saw Sacramento’s Homeless Chaos Firsthand

_{Michele Steeb
June 2, 2026}

America’s homelessness crisis is routinely framed as a housing crisis. It is not. It is a crisis born from the collapse of accountability at every level of the system. Nowhere are the consequences of that collapse more visible than in California — and especially in its capital city, Sacramento. In 2016, California became the only state in the nation to formally adopt the federal government’s Housing First mandate as its sole taxpayer-funded approach to homelessness, directing billions in state and federal dollars toward subsidized-for-life apartments with no accountability for sobriety, treatment, or work — ever. Sacramento County followed in 2017, embracing the housing-only model, despite repeated warnings from frontline providers that housing alone would …

Where Is the Outrage? The Double Standard No One Wants to Admit

_{Michele Steeb
May 25, 2026}

When environmental destruction, abuse, violence, and public disorder emerge from homeless encampments, many of America’s most vocal advocacy organizations suddenly fall silent. Recently, a major stretch of Interstate 110 in Los Angeles was shut down for nearly 24 hours after a fire erupted inside a homeless encampment beneath the freeway. As emergency crews battled the blaze and cleared the aftermath, the broader impact came into sharp focus: mountains of debris and trash removed, emergency personnel diverted from other critical duties, millions of gallons of water consumed, commuters stranded across one of the nation’s busiest urban corridors, and concerns raised about potential damage to public infrastructure. Thankfully, no fatalities were reported. But the broader …

Michele Steeb Calls for “All Hands on Deck” Approach to Homelessness on The Steve Gruber Show

_{Editor and Michele Steeb
May 5, 2026}

Michele Steeb appeared on The Steve Gruber Show on May 5 to discuss our current homelessness crisis. She explained why Housing First has failed to address the crisis, why the crisis is especially bad in California, the bill that could have begun to turn things around, but that Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed, and more. …

Reintegrating Faith Into the Nation’s Approach to Homelessness

_{Michele Steeb
April 17, 2026}

For more than a century, America’s response to homelessness was rooted in faith. Churches, rescue missions, Catholic Charities, and the Salvation Army fed the hungry, sheltered the vulnerable, and most importantly, walked alongside them toward restoration. They innately understood a fundamental truth: Homelessness is a human transformation challenge requiring recovery, accountability, and the restoration of purpose. Over the past decade, however, policymakers were increasingly steered toward a different conclusion. A one-size-fits-all approach was supposed to end homelessness and simplify it — housing as the solution, housing placement as the sole metric, and a uniform approach applied everywhere. For policymakers drawn to ease, the appeal was obvious. But in embracing …

Newsom Tries to Shift Blame on Homelessness to Local Government

_{Michele Steeb
March 31, 2026}

Gavin Newsom stood before the cameras in early March and once again blamed local governments for the state’s spiraling homelessness crisis. “No more excuses,” he thundered, threatening to strip funding from counties he claims are underperforming while promising to redirect “every damn penny” to those “getting things done.” Newsom is once again attempting to shift blame for California’s homelessness crisis — the very crisis he has repeatedly pledged to solve, including his 2021 vow to end family homelessness within five years. Since 2017, homelessness in California has surged by more than 40 percent — from roughly 134,000 people to nearly 187,000 in 2024 — despite an estimated $30 billion in spending he authorized. His …

Addiction Is a Disease — Policy May Finally Catch Up

_{Michele Steeb
March 23, 2026}

More than 48 million Americans are battling substance use disorder. Many are deteriorating in plain sight — on sidewalks, in encampments, and in emergency rooms. Others decline behind closed doors. Overdoses are shattering families, especially within the homeless population where the death rate among people living on the streets has surged by 77 percent. Yet in a media landscape quick to amplify controversy but slow to recognize consequential reform, President Donald Trump’s executive order to overhaul America’s addiction response passed with remarkably little national attention. It shouldn’t have. At its core, the order affirms a truth long understood by those who have worked on the front lines: no man or woman living with addiction ever dreamed of …

Obama Admits Housing First was a Losing Strategy

_{Michele Steeb
February 23, 2026}

Last weekend, former President Barack Obama acknowledged a blunt political reality: “The average person doesn’t want to have to navigate around a tent city in the middle of downtown … and we’re not going to be able to generate support if we simply say, ‘It’s not their fault, they should be able to do whatever they want,’ because that’s a losing political strategy.” What makes the remark notable is not merely its candor. It is the history behind it. It was the Obama administration that institutionalized the federal government’s one-size-fits-all embrace of Housing First in 2013. They promised the approach would end homelessness within a decade by prioritizing immediate housing placement. The theory was simple: Housing would …

More Spending, More Suffering: The Failure of America’s Homelessness Policy

_{Michele Steeb
February 11, 2026}

In a recent ruling that defies both logic and compassion, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to reform the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care program — the federal government’s primary funding mechanism for homelessness assistance. The lawsuit — filed by a coalition of 20 mostly Democratic-led states, local governments, and nonprofit organizations and spearheaded by groups such as Democracy Forward — warns of “funding gaps,” winter instability, and the potential displacement of people currently housed. These alarms are sounded even though HUD includes a nearly 12% increase over last year’s funding allocation. At the core of the complaint is a revealing claim: that reform would …

Tragic Tales Demand Reform

_{Michele Steeb
January 8, 2026}

Across America’s streets, the homeless epidemic is claiming lives, fracturing families, and eroding public safety. Often deeply intertwined with mental illness and addiction, it has become a humanitarian crisis that traps vulnerable individuals in cycles of dependence and despair while destabilizing the communities around them. This crisis has been worsened by policies that elevate the notion of “freedom” over timely, life-saving intervention. Recent events make the consequences of that choice unmistakably clear. Continuing on the current path is neither humane nor responsible. Consider what unfolded in New York City over the holidays. A woman with a documented history of serious mental illness and homelessness was released from psychiatric care, only to purchase …

“Humanitarian Emergency”: Seattle’s New Mayor Must Bring an End to the City’s Homelessness Crisis

_{Michele Steeb
December 1, 2025}

Seattle’s incoming mayor, Katie Wilson, will inherit a homelessness crisis that will define her ability to lead. Seattle’s homeless population needs more than another round of aspirational promises. They need and deserve an operational reset grounded in compassion, accountability, and the courage to confront realities the city has failed to address for years. She must replace press releases and ceremonial groundbreaking for housing that may never materialize with programs that support the homeless in reclaiming their lives from the grip of untreated mental illness, addiction, and dangerous encampments that have taken root throughout the city. The scale of Seattle’s crisis is staggering. HUD’s 2024 Point-in-Time count identified 16,868 people struggling …

Michele Steeb Talks Housing First Failure and What Fixes Homelessness on Morning Wire

_{Editor and Michele Steeb
December 1, 2025}

Michele Steeb joined a weekend edition of Morning Wire, presented by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and co-host Georgia Howe, to discuss the recent federal reforms that offer hope for our homelessness crisis. Steeb covers how faith-based programs used to spearhead the fight against homelessness, how the Obama administration changed the federal approach for the worse, and what the Trump administration’s recent reforms mean for the homeless and communities nationwide. Years after President Barack Obama promised to end homelessness, the problem has only surged. In this episode, we sit down with expert @SteebMichele, who wrote the book on how to approach the homeless crisis, and discuss the moves President Trump is making to force progressive… …

Michele Steeb Explains California’s Homelessness Crisis with Amanda Head

_{Editor and Michele Steeb
November 5, 2025}

Michele Steeb appeared on Furthermore with Amanda Head on November 4 to discuss California’s failed Housing First strategy and its growing homelessness crisis. Listen to the Episode Here …