Robert Marbut

Senior Fellow, Center on Wealth & Poverty

Robert Marbut is a renowned expert on homelessness and a senior fellow of Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth & Poverty. Marbut has a PhD in Political Behavior and American Political Institutions and his career has been marked by bipartisanship having served as Chief of Staff for San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros in the 1980s, as a White House Fellow under George H. W. Bush, and most recently as the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness from 2019 to 2021 under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Additionally, he served on the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee from 1992 to 2004.

Archives

Robert Marbut Discusses Seattle’s Homelessness Crisis on the John Curley Show

Center on Wealth & Poverty and Robert Marbut
January 17, 2025
In Seattle, the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness is on track to double in just the next three years. Robert Marbut appeared on KIRO Newsradio’s John Curley Show to discuss the policies that have exacerbated the crisis and the solutions available to the city and county. Discovery Institute released a report last November detailing our policy recommendations for the city of Seattle to curb their homelessness crisis. Read the Report …

Why Doesn’t China Have Addiction Problems Like America? Robert Marbut Discusses on NewsNation

Center on Wealth & Poverty and Robert Marbut
January 8, 2025
Despite being the main supplier of America’s fentanyl crisis, China does not have the same addiction problem. Robert Marbut appeared on NewsNation Prime to compare and contrast the robust ways that China addresses addiction with America’s harm reduction policies. Robert Marbut is Senior Producer of the new film, “Fentanyl: Death Incorporated,” now streaming at Salem NOW. To find out more about the film, go to fentanyldeathincorporated.com. …

Robert Marbut Highlights Fentanyl Crisis on NewsNation

Center on Wealth & Poverty and Robert Marbut
January 7, 2025
In December, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Robert Marbut appeared on NewsNation Prime to discuss the fentanyl crisis and the upcoming movie, “Fentanyl: Death Incorporated.” Marbut is the Senior Producer of the film. “We have never seen a drug this deadly, this lethal, this potent, ever in the history of the world,” Marbut told host Natasha Zouves. “Fentanyl: Death Incorporated” will begin streaming in 2025. To find out more, go to fentanyldeathincorporated.com. …

A New Approach for Seattle’s Homelessness Crisis

Robert Marbut
November 13, 2024
In this episode, Caitlyn McKenney is joined by Discovery Senior Fellow and former Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness to discuss a new policy report we coauthored to address homelessness in Seattle. Read the report. …

Housing First Doesn’t Work

Robert Marbut
May 28, 2024
In a classic attempt to bury embarrassing data, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its most recent annual homelessness Point-in-Time Count report on a Friday, shortly before the Christmas break, about 11 months after the counting was done. Try as it might, HUD is unable to hide the problem anymore because the increases are so high.

Conservatives and Liberals Have to Come Together on This Issue

Caitlyn McKenney and Robert Marbut
May 16, 2024
I’m joined on my very first episode by actor Billy Baldwin and Discovery Senior Fellow and homelessness expert Robert Marbut. We talk about their upcoming documentary (Americans With No Address), our experience doing outreach on the streets of Seattle, and why the right and left have every reason to find common ground on homelessness, addiction, and untreated mental illness. …

No Address: An Interactive Study Guide

Robert Marbut
March 5, 2024
A four-session interactive Bible study, based on the documentary Americans with No Address, that examines the biblical response to people experiencing homelessness.Homelessness is not an “issue”; it’s an opportunity for the church to love our neighbors. In this four-session interactive Bible study, we examine what Scripture has to say on the topic. A companion to the documentary Americans with No Address and the full-length theatrical movie No Address (starring Ashanti, William Baldwin, Beverly D’Angelo, and Xander Berkeley), this study teaches participants: The root causes of different types of homelessness. How to engage rather than enable. The importance of collaboration among existing agencies. How to mobilize their church to follow Jesus’ call to …

Obama Promised to End Homelessness This Year

The former president’s ‘housing first’ policy has been a dismal failure.
Robert Marbut and Marvin Olasky
February 20, 2023
Policy makers act as if it’s simply an issue of people not having houses, rather than a complex problem often rooted in mental illness and substance-abuse disorders.

Robert Marbut on America’s Homelessness Crisis, Strategies for Uplifting the Homeless, and Effective Government Policies

Robert Marbut
May 25, 2022
Homelessness has reached crisis proportions. Few issues of human dignity are as heart wrenching as the wretched scenes in our most prosperous cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle — where one can drive down main thoroughfares and be confronted with tent encampments lining streets that provide scant shelter for thousands of destitute people.

Robert Marbut on America’s Homelessness Crisis, Strategies for Uplifting the Homeless, and Effective Government Policies

Robert Marbut
May 23, 2022
Homelessness has reached crisis proportions. Few issues of human dignity are as heart wrenching as the wretched scenes in our most prosperous cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle—where one can drive down main thoroughfares and be confronted with tent encampments lining streets that provide scant shelter for thousands of destitute people.

Generous Donation Gone to Waste on Bad Homelessness Policy

Robert Marbut and Caitlin Cory
March 28, 2022
Seattle civic and business leaders have announced a $10 million collaborative effort to tackle the downtown chronic homelessness problem. “It’s the beginning of some good news,” Mayor Bruce Harrell declared when they announced the financial donation.

Most Cities’ Responses To Homelessness Actually Enable Even More Homelessness

Housing First fails because it doesn’t address root causes of homelessness: unaddressed mental illness and substance use disorders.
Robert Marbut and Caitlin Cory
March 18, 2022
If policymakers want to be serious about truly alleviating the suffering of those experiencing homelessness and keeping their streets safe, they need to spend their money wisely on treatment-and-recovery approaches.

Expanding the Toolbox

The Whole-of-Government Response to Homelessness
Robert Marbut
October 5, 2020
In the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) The State of Homelessness in America report, CEA pointed out that overall homelessness has increased in America; and in many communities, homelessness has reached a crisis level. In just five years, unsheltered homelessness increased 20.5 percent from 175,399 in 2014 to 211,293 in 2019. Simultaneously, the number of year-round beds available to serve persons experiencing homelessness through subsidized Rapid Rehousing and Permanent Supportive Housing rose from 338,065 to 482,254, a 42.7 percent increase in five years. Despite significant increases in funding and beds, overall homelessness has been increasing in the United States. The federal government’s policy shift in 2013 to prioritizing housing first as a one-size-fits-all approach …

Robert Marbut on Ask Dr. Drew

Robert Marbut
January 19, 2020
Dr. Drew is joined by Leeann Tweeden and Robert Marbut, director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness. They discuss issues surrounding the homeless in major cities, health concerns from large groups living outdoors, and how the Trump administration plans to address the needs of the homeless population. …