Unhoused
Homelessness in the US has grown to the highest level since the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) started tracking the figure back in 2007, with a record 653,104 people experiencing homelessness at the latest annual count.
HUD's most recent snapshot data, taken on a single night every year in the last 10 days of January, paints a broad but bleak picture of America’s homelessness situation, with the headcount rising more than 12% since 2022.
The number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness — those living on sidewalks or in abandoned buildings, bus stations, etc. — was up around 47k from last year, while the figure for people staying in emergency shelters, transitional housing programs, or safe havens grew 23k in the same period.
Behind the rise
Homelessness has risen across every group that HUD tracks, including families, veterans, the young, and the elderly, with various reasons behind the across-the-board uptick. Indeed, government officials and expert analysts have pointed to the decline of Covid-era assistance packages and programs, in addition to sharp nationwide rent increases, as factors, with the cost of shelter rising more than 20% since the start of the pandemic.
