When I was a teenager, I spent one winter night hiding in someone’s backyard behind an old refrigerator.
There was a small alcove between the fridge and a wall, just big enough for me to squeeze into if I shoved the refrigerator forward first. So I pushed it out, crawled in, and pulled it back behind me to hide.
It was the middle of winter. I can still remember the cold. The pain. The stinging, needle-like sensation in my fingers. My fingers and toes got frostbite that night. More than a decade later, they still go ice cold and ache when the temperature drops.
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At one point, the homeowner heard something and came to the back door with a flashlight. I could see her through a small crack as she scanned the yard. I remember sitting frozen behind that fridge, praying she would not find me.
I also remember praying for the sun and the warmth it would bring.
The next morning I crawled out, walked about a mile to a McDonald’s, washed myself in the sink, changed into my uniform, and got on a bus to go work my shift washing dishes at a restaurant.
I want people to sit with that for a minute.
I was sleeping outside. I was a teenager. And I was still working.
That is what so many people miss when they talk about homelessness. They reach for the same tired phrase: People just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
But what if the bootstraps are broken?
What if the person you are judging is already doing everything they can — and still sleeping outside in the dead of winter? What if the problem is not a lack of effort, but the absence of anything solid to stand on?
I eventually built a life I am proud of. I found recovery and built a career rooted in service. But my story is not proof that the system works. It is proof of how much people can survive even when the system fails them.
And our system is failing people every day.
Too often, what we call a homelessness response system is really a crisis management system. We cycle people through emergency rooms, jails, shelters and detox — responding only after things have already fallen apart.
We are already paying for homelessness — just in the most expensive and least effective way.
You cannot recover, stay sober, keep a job or manage your health when your life revolves around one question: Where will I sleep tonight?
That is why housing is not a side issue in homelessness. It is the issue.
For people with the highest needs, the most effective response is supportive housing: stable housing paired with services like case management, behavioral health care and recovery support.
Decades of research show supportive housing increases stability, reduces reliance on emergency services and saves money.
In other words, we are already paying for the problem. We just refuse to invest in the solution.
Instead, the conversation is increasingly shifting toward control — policies focused on managing people rather than stabilizing them. Expanding coercive approaches without addressing housing is not a strategy.
Civil commitment and forced treatment have a role in limited circumstances. But they are not a substitute for a functioning housing system.
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I believe in personal responsibility. I had to take responsibility for my own life. Recovery required that. But personal responsibility is not a substitute for policy.
It does not create affordable housing. It does not lower rents. It does not treat trauma or addiction. It does not make a teenager less homeless because he showed up to work the next morning.
The old bootstrap story assumes there is still a ladder. For too many people, there is not.
Rents have climbed faster than wages. Affordable housing is scarce. And even when people do everything right, they can still end up one crisis away from sleeping outside.
I know what it feels like to pray for sunrise because the cold hurts so badly you are not sure your body can hold on.
That is exactly why I reject the fantasy that homelessness is solved by grit alone.
The truth is simple: The bootstraps are broken.
The question is whether we are finally ready to build something better.
Michael Giovanis co-founded LEAN (mnlean.org), which strives to foster a network of lived experience advocates across the state, provide educational resources, and offer a nurturing community for mutual support and collaboration. He is founding partner at Availing Echoism.
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