Housing first means to provide housing as the first step to ending homelessness. No means testing: if you need a home you get a home. Shelter is imperative for survival and housing is the best type of shelter. Once housed, everthing else becomes easier. Rehab is easier. Getting a job is easier. Staying healthy is easier. Avoiding violent crime is easier. Because it has so many positive knock on effects--more than any other approach--it should be the first step to reintegrating in society. It's important to note, however, that it puts housing first and not only. Other wraparound services are still required to lift people out of poverty. For instance, it makes rehab easier, but if there's no rehab options nearby healing from a drug addiction is harder than it needs to be.

Ideally it would be housing for all and society wouldn't let people fall to the point of living in the streets, but we failed that and so housing first is what is needed to get back on track.

Housing first does not mean everyone gets a free single family home, it means everyone has access to reasonable shelter and privacy. That could be served by hotels, retro fitting empty office complexes, or tiny homes. Something enough for people to be safe and dignified.

And hey, like UBI, whenever it's been tried it works.

It means step one is to provide housing, no questions asked, without it being contingent on drug or mental health testing. People need shelter and basic survival needs met first before you can even begin to try to address issues like addiction or mental illness.