Homelessness rises to a record level in America
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Each year for a few frigid days in January volunteers fan out across cities, towns and rural areas to try to count every homeless person in America. The method is admittedly flawed: cities do their counting in different ways, and many homeless people are transient or hide away in subterranean tunnels and under highway overpasses.
Researchers think the result is an undercount. But this “point in time" survey offers the most complete picture of homelessness that exists in America today. The results for January 2024, released on December 27th, offer bleak news: the number of homeless people in the country had risen to the highest level on record.
Between 2023 and 2024 homelessness increased by 18%, to roughly 771,000 people. That is nearly as many people as live in North Dakota. The vast majority of the uptick comes from people living in shelters—picture hotel rooms or rows of cots—rather than sleeping rough, as is common on the West Coast and in some southern states.
The report’s most shocking revelation is a 39% rise in family homelessness year-on-year—a reversal of a slow but steady decline in the years preceding the covid-19 pandemic. Three main factors contributed to the surge: a housing shortage that has driven up rents and home prices, an influx of asylum-seekers that overwhelmed some cities, and disasters that displaced people. Estimates vary, but Moody’s Analytics, a consultancy, reckons America is short about 2.9m affordable homes.
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