Over 500,000 people experience homelessness on any given night in the U.S., but ?housing first? policies have reduced chronic homelessness over the last decade. | Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Robert Marbut?s polarizing methodology goes against the ?housing first? approach that has worked in many U.S. cities. The Trump administration?s selection of a private housing consultant with a polarizing ideology as federal homelessness czar has advocates worried that years of progress could be undone in what has become a growing crisis for many U.S. cities.
Robert Marbut was appointed last week as director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), a position that collaborates on homelessness policy with 19 key agencies. His appointment?which must be confirmed in a vote by representatives of those agencies?was quickly condemned by housing advocates, including the national nonprofit Invisible People, which described Marbut?s past work as ?real-life horror.?
Established in 1987, the Council?s purpose is to coordinate homelessness services across a wide range of departments, including housing, veterans? affairs, and public health. ?It is difficult to overstate the Council?s importance, or the immense responsibility to sustain and advance its progress,? said Nan Roman, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in a statement. ?This work has been neither political nor partisan. Rather, it has been strategic, evidence-based, and informed by the best practi...