Nearly 750,000 Americans sleep without a regular roof over their heads every night. As people fall through the holes in the safety net, many find shelter in transportation spaces, from buses, trains, and RVs to freeway interchanges and airports. Many more use transportation systems for vital access to jobs, services, and other destinations. Transportation operators are not designed to address homelessness but must do so — both as a practical necessity and as part of their social service mission.
As transportation has become a critical space for homelessness policy, this mini-symposium will explore their intersections, with both the speakers and with all attendees: why and how people experiencing homelessness use different transportation modes and spaces and how agencies can best respond and balance their different priorities.