Homelessness isn’t one-size-fits-all. Why are our solutions? We talk about homelessness like it only happens “somewhere else”—on city streets, behind headlines, in neighborhoods we never walk through. That mindset shapes how we act, who we help, and what solutions we even imagine. But homelessness doesn’t fit into neat boxes. It’s not just downtown tents or shelters—it’s a family quietly doubling up in a small-town trailer after a factory closes, a kid in a rural school who doesn’t know where they’ll sleep tonight, a home slowly eaten by mold until there’s nothing left to return to. When we ignore these realities, our policies miss the people who need help most. Seeing homelessness clearly means asking uncomfortable questions: What assumptions blind us? Why do we treat it as someone else’s problem? How do our solutions change if we actually look at the places people live—their resources, their risks, their limits? Urban programs have lessons for rural communities; rural realities ha...