When I was a kid, there was a commercial for the brokerage firm EF Hutton with the iconic line: “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” The entire group of people in the commercial would go silent, and heads would turn. Everyone knew that what was about to be said was important.

But when homeless people talk? People cross the street. They scroll past. They tune out.

Homelessness does not have the EF Hutton effect. But it should, because homelessness is on the rise nationwide. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2023 report, homelessness surged to affect more than 653,000 individuals — a record high. Cities like Los Angeles, New York and Portland are facing dramatic increases.

But this isn’t just an urban issue — the rise in homelessness is happening in rural communities, suburban towns and even on college campuses. Yet policymakers continue to make decisions without consulting those who live or have lived this reality.

Having been an unhoused single parent for nearly 20 years, I know firsthand how disconnected many “solutions” can be from what people actually need. While I made my share of bad decisions, I was also the victim of a broken system that fails to address the root causes of instability and poverty. My story is about the challenges that countless others face — barriers that prevent us from achieving stability and success, no matter how hard we work.

The need to keep a roof over my daughter’s head while I was experiencing homelessness across the country was overwhelming. The solutions offered were often disconnected from the reality of what we were facing.

There is an urgent need for listening to people who know. The voices of people who have experienced homelessness are among the most critical in understanding the complexities of the issue. The lived experience of homelessness is often excluded from the very policies that are supposed to address it.

In 2023, the city of San Francisco released the results of a Community Voice Matters study on people experiencing homelessness. They spoke to the need for long-term housing options and supportive services, and a move away from punitive measures like criminalization. They’re asking for better access to mental health services, substance abuse recovery programs and financial stability. And they placed a very strong emphasis on hiring people with lived experiences of homelessness and incarceration.

A report I authored last year, “Mandate Future Politicians to Prioritize Homelessness,” reached audiences across the United States, as well as in London and South Africa. Now we’re pushing for deeper structural change. The focus isn’t just on raising awareness, but on transforming systems so that the voices of the unhoused are integrated into real decision-making processes.

We’re calling on universities to include people with lived experience in homelessness research, for governments to create and fund panels of unhoused individuals and for nonprofits to stop treating the unhoused as passive recipients of aid and recognize them as co-creators of solutions.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson gives cities and states the right to criminalize homelessness, complicating efforts to create effective solutions. That makes it even more important for the voices of the unhoused to be heard in policy debates.

If we truly want to address the crisis of homelessness, we need to challenge the notion that the problem can simply be swept away through criminalization. This only shifts the problem without addressing its root causes: the lack of affordable housing and mental health support, and dire economic instability.

Thanks to the many organizations that already support the inclusion of homeless voices in decision-making, such as the National Coalition for the Homeless, Homeless Outreach Program and others, your work is paving the way for a more inclusive, compassionate and effective response to homelessness.

The voices of those who have lived through homelessness are essential. We can no longer afford to ignore their experiences. Together, we can ensure that people who are homeless matter, not just in speeches and policy reports, but in the decisions that shape their futures.

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Eric Protein Moseley (@MandateAChange) of Richmond, California, is a social impact documentary filmmaker who is about to release a low-budget, high-impact documentary: “Homelessness Has No Permanent Address.” This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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