Meet the outsider who accidentally solved chronic homelessness

The process of innovation is often one of mystery. Where does an idea come from? How do innovators find it? What makes them different from everyone else fumbling around in the dark?

Compounding the puzzle is the irony that those most likely to innovate are rarely the experts. They’re outsiders who see things freshly.

And so, on a recent morning, one such outsider picks his way down a sun-splashed Brookland street. Face patched in scruff, wiry frame crammed into a Patagonia jacket, he doesn’t at first seem like an innovator who has had national impact. But few thinkers today are in greater demand.