Algorithms, Influencers, and Profit-Driven Narratives Are Reshaping Public Perception, Fueling the Policies That Keep People Unhoused
We didn’t wake up one morning hating homeless people.
Scroll long enough, and you’ll see why: shaky videos of suffering, thumbnails designed to shock, livestreams that turn human crisis into entertainment. This is the version of homelessness the algorithm rewards, a narrative that fuels outrage, suppresses empathy, and hides the real cause behind the crisis: a lack of affordable housing.
Viral content presents a loud, false narrative about homelessness that gets viewed and shared by millions every day. Over time, as clicks become views and views become follows, creators who know little about homelessness earn big money from sensational content. And the more it spreads, the more believable the narrative becomes.
The more these unchecked narratives get repeated as fact, the harder it becomes to rally support for real solutions to homelessness. They teach people to fear or look down on their unhoused neighbors — while celebrating the very voices that harm them. And that’s how extreme poverty is able to thrive in one of the wealthiest nations on earth.
Homelessness spiked by 18%, reaching a record high in 2024. People are filming TikTok videos of themselves living in cars with their children. In some cities, seniors and veterans have been documented living in storm drain tunnels. Sidewalks. Tents. Vehicles. Underpasses. Flammable shacks. These are places where hundreds of thousands of Americans live, and too many die each year. Have we no empathy?
The truth is that algorithms, sensational content, and profit-driven narratives often obscure the truth, taking root in virtual spaces where they spread faster and more powerfully than in the real world. Instead of being encouraged to support solutions to the homeless crisis, we are being taught to hate our neighbors, and, in some cases, even ourselves. Because, yes, homelessness can happen to you. Sudden and unexpected homelessness is the most common kind there is.
But content creators aren’t interested in those truths. Their only goal is to pull you deeper into a stream of shocking, attention-grabbing clips. And in that world, you never see the families living in motel rooms, waking up at 4 a.m. to get their kids to school by bus, or scrambling each night to secure a shelter bed. That reality is too ordinary to generate profit. Instead, you’re shown a different kind of desperation — the kind that keeps you watching.
Walk with me.
Here’s How the Internet Teaches Us to Hate Homeless People — and What’s Actually True
America is facing a homeless crisis, a housing crisis, and an addiction crisis. Imagine exploiting those facts just to make money. Doing so has proven highly profitable for:
- Corporate landlords and lenders who benefit from the fact that there is a shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes.
- Crafty politicians who wish to pin the homeless crisis on the homeless population, thus curtailing the demand to present any fact-based solutions.
- So-called influencers who brand themselves as “experts” — These shock jocks film people in crisis without consent, packaging human pain into outrageous clips because shock is what keeps the clicks coming.
These aligned interests work together like hands in a massive machine that is constantly churning.
Algorithms amplify whatever content keeps people watching, often prioritizing sensational narratives over truth. The truth is whatever the audience wants it to be. The algorithm says so. Thus, the digital empire is won not by truth-telling but by captivity. The more captivated the audience, the more profit content creators make from harming the people they film. Here are some ways they teach us to hate our unhoused neighbors:
- Posting video footage of drug addicts (without their permission) in compromised positions under the assumption that they are homeless
- Prioritizing sensationalism over truth by portraying extreme examples of homeless people, as opposed to filming more common scenarios
- Equating popularity with expertise, allowing creators with the most views, not the most knowledge, to shape public understanding of homelessness
- Tying false narratives to buzzwords like “service-resistant” and “unaccountable” and then using these loaded phrases to perpetuate stereotypes
- Leaving out the leading cause of homelessness, by refusing to mention or acknowledge the lack of affordable housing
- Reinforcing stigmas through the overrepresentation of negative homeless stereotypes in film, news, media, and online
- Exploiting homeless women and girls by making them look vulnerable, irresponsible, or promiscuous
- Exploiting homeless men by making them seem violent, mentally ill, or dishonorable
- Adding graphic imagery to thumbnails so even the users who don’t click on the content are subliminally influenced to associate negative depictions of drug addicts with the raging homeless crisis
The Rise of the Self-Proclaimed ‘Expert’ and the Shifting Tide of Truth
These social media platforms work in tandem with other streams of media that have long been distorting the truth about homelessness. For example, a Taylor and Francis online housing study examined 226 photographs portraying homelessness on major US news outlets and found that the majority of the images:
- Were dehumanizing
- Failed to depict the lack of affordable housing
- Often projected homeless paraphernalia like shopping carts and rusty, haphazard tents
- Did not show the subjects facing the camera or looking at the lens
- Did not list the name of the subject in the caption
Authors of the study said, “These findings affirmed the dehumanizing nature of news photographs about homelessness, and underscore the importance of partnering with the media to raise awareness of stigma and ultimately bring about policy change.”
Today, streamers are even more prevalent and influential than mainstream media in how we consume news. According to Pew Research, 20% of U.S. adults now get news from TikTok — a share that has grown by 17 percentage points in five years. Another 38% of Facebook users get news from Meta’s platforms, and 35% of YouTube users rely on YouTube as a news source.
A significant shift in influence is underway, one that could benefit housing advocates if facts were leading the conversation. Instead, the same harmful narratives are being recycled, only now by social media personalities who are even less qualified to report on homelessness than the traditional outlets they’re replacing.
You used to have to spend years studying to become an expert on homelessness. Today, all you need is a camera, a viral clip, and a million staring eyes, and suddenly you’re viewed as a credible source.
“This is increasingly how the public consumes information: through influencers and parasocial relationships rather than traditional journalism,” said Invisible People founder Mark Horvath. “As nonprofits, we can’t afford to ignore this shift.”
“We’re not just up against misinformation — we’re up against entire ecosystems built to profit from it,” he continued. “If we want facts to have a fighting chance, we must start thinking and acting like media publishers. We need to build audiences, not just awareness. Otherwise, our silence will be filled by louder, more deceptive voices.”
The ‘Mega Mentality’ and Its Influence on Public Policy
Behind today’s anti-homeless rhetoric is a well-funded “mega” machine — a network of policy shops, real estate interests, and political donors whose influence shapes how cities respond to homelessness.
Organizations such as the Cicero Institute, corporate landlord associations, large real estate investment firms, and major political donors have all backed punitive legislation that prioritizes enforcement over housing. It works like this:
- Mega influencers teach their millions of followers that homelessness is the result of personal flaws rather than systemic failures. This encourages their viewers to hold incorrect ideas about the true causes of homelessness and leads them to vote for laws that prioritize enforcement over housing.
- Mega landlords profit massively because, since the public holds these misguided beliefs, they are not being held accountable for raising rents by 31% in just 5 years.
- Mega millionaires and billionaires pull strings behind the scenes, pushing for anti-homeless legislation and punitive approaches to the homeless crisis.
- Mega donors line the pockets of politicians on both sides of the political aisle to keep laws on the books that favor the few elites over the many working-class American citizens.
A massive and growing body of research — from peer-reviewed studies and Pew data sets to decades of reports from HUD and the National Low Income Housing Coalition — all points to the same conclusion: homelessness is first and foremost a housing issue. Without housing, we cannot fix it. But housing isn’t the only truth being distorted. Addiction, too, is often weaponized in public debate, a point Invisible People founder Mark Horvath stresses.
“America does have a serious addiction crisis,” Horvath said. “Pretending otherwise fuels public frustration and strengthens harmful narratives. If we do not talk honestly about addiction and solutions, other people will fill that vacuum with punishment and stigma.”
Until we address the realities driving homelessness, the misinformation vacuum will continue to fill with fear, punishment, and stigma.
This is Part 3 of a six-part Invisible People series on how digital media reshapes public attitudes toward homelessness. Part 4 in this series shows how “educational” media packages misleading claims about homelessness into slick, school-ready content that teaches young audiences to see it as a moral failing.
Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2. Please share this series with friends and on social media to help Invisible People amplify truth over misinformation.