Michele Steeb

Senior Fellow, Fix Homelessness Initiative

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

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 …

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… …

A New Study Just Exposed the Corruption Behind America’s Homelessness Crisis

Michele Steeb
October 30, 2025
For years, Americans have been told that “compassion” for the homeless meant writing ever-larger checks — more money, more programs and far less accountability. Now, at last, we have some answers for why homelessness has exploded even amid a tripling of public spending. A groundbreaking investigation, “Infiltrated” — backed by more than 50 pages of documentation from the Capital Research Center in cooperation with Discovery Institute — pulls back the curtain on a vast system of corruption. It reveals how billions in taxpayer funds intended to lift people out of homelessness have instead bankrolled radical activism and anti-American political agendas, betraying both the taxpayers who fund it and the homeless they were meant to help. Despite …

Housing Without Healing Won’t Cure Homelessness

Michele Steeb
October 20, 2025
Homelessness in California — and across America — has reached a breaking point. The crisis has climbed to the highest level ever recorded, even as billions more are poured into housing subsidies and bureaucratic programs that promise compassion but deliver only despair. No one bears the consequences more cruelly than the homeless themselves. Their death rate has soared by 77% in the country’s largest urban areas, a devastating indictment of a system that prioritizes housing units over human healing. Communities, too, shoulder the burden — streets overrun, neighborhoods destabilized and taxpayers funding a model that fails everyone it claims to help. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order marks the first real course correction in over a decade. By …

Newsom Just Made a Catastrophic Mistake on California’s Homelessness Disaster

Michele Steeb
October 9, 2025
In a catastrophic miscalculation that exposes his continued attachment to failure, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 255 on Oct. 1. It was a bipartisan measure designed to expand access to recovery housing for homeless individuals struggling with substance use disorders. His veto comes at a time when California’s homeless can least afford more failure. AB 255, authored by Assembly member Matt Haney, would have allowed up to 10% of state homelessness funds to support abstinence-based recovery housing. These programs integrate shelter with sobriety requirements, accountability and supportive services that help people reclaim stability. Newsom dismissed the bill as “unnecessary,” insisting that current guidelines already permit sober housing and …

Michele Steeb Talks Rethinking Homelessness with Tudor Dixon

Center on Wealth & Poverty and Michele Steeb
September 18, 2025
Michele Steeb appeared on The Tudor Dixon Podcast to discuss why Housing First isn’t enough. Steeb reviews the history of Housing First, why it has failed, the dismal state of homelessness in California, and why treatment- and recovery-focused policies are the correct path forward. Listen to Podcast Episode Here …

Michele Steeb Talks Homelessness with Shaun Thompson

Center on Wealth & Poverty and Michele Steeb
September 18, 2025
Michele Steeb appeared on The Shaun Thompson Show to discuss homelessness. Steeb explains the pivotal shift in homelessness policy that occurred in 2013, the new direction President Trump is steering homelessness policy today, the financial corruption behind Housing First, and more. Listen to the Podcast Episode Here …

Michele Steeb Talks with NTD News About Killing of Ukrainian Refugee

Center on Wealth & Poverty and Michele Steeb
September 12, 2025
Michele Steeb appeared on NTD News and spoke with host Don Ma about the recent tragic killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska. Steeb addresses the relationship between homelessness, mental illness, and crime, and explains why housing subsidies do not fix these issues. Steeb speaks from her experience running a Northern California program for homeless women and children. Watch Michele Steeb on NTD News …