About the initiative

Los Angeles stands at a defining moment in the future of housing, health, and urban life in America. The region faces the most visible and complex housing and homelessness crises in the nation. It is also emerging as one of the country's most important laboratories for innovation, experimentation, and systems transformation.

Homelessness is no longer perceived as an isolated social issue. It is increasingly understood as an economic challenge, a public health challenge, a racial equity challenge, a governance challenge, and a test of civic capacity itself. Responding effectively requires institutions capable of integrating knowledge across fields while remaining grounded in the lived realities of communities.

That integrative capacity is one of USC's defining strengths. Across the university, faculty, researchers, clinicians, designers, technologists, and community partners are already advancing nationally significant work spanning social work, medicine, public policy, public health, architecture, gerontology, behavioral science, data science, artificial intelligence, and civic engagement. USC does not engage this work solely from a distance: USC-affiliated teams provide clinical care on the streets of Los Angeles, partner with public agencies, support regional data infrastructure, and help translate evidence into operational and policy decisions.

USC Housing LA emerges from the recognition that this moment requires not only excellence within disciplines, but coordination across them, and that universities must contribute not only ideas, but infrastructure for collaboration.

At its core, the initiative is grounded in a belief that the purpose of research, policy, healthcare, and public systems is not merely to manage crisis, but to support human flourishing. Housing stability matters because it creates the conditions through which individuals, families, and communities can experience health, dignity, belonging, resilience, safety, connection, opportunity, and purpose. The ultimate measure of success is not simply whether homelessness becomes less visible, but whether people and communities are better able to thrive.

This is not simply an academic opportunity. It is a civic one.