As we advocate for housing status to be documented in national databases, in the meantime: researchers can use multiple sources, collaborate with state/local housing service providers or health departments, and look to emerging technologies (including LLMs) to extract data from clinical docs.

Currently, it is very challenging to identify people experiencing homelessness, and common ways have notable flaws. Surgeons must seize emerging opportunities to standardize documentation of housing status to 1) facilitate better rsch & 2) move from describing problems to testing solutions.