The three main culprits here are a shortage of available housing, the cost of that housing and the influx of migrants. Local govs in most Northern cities have made it difficult for developers to permit and build (ergo a shortage of homes). Of course high interest rates make things three times worse (literally). You can blame some of that on supply chain pandemic woes but the bulk comes from our government spending mountains of money it doesn't have (inevitably leading to inflation).
As for migrants, we thrown our own poor under the bus. We allow illegals who sneak in to wait years while on trial to be deported while we lavish resources on them that are no longer available for our own poor. Pretty shameful and stupid.
U.S. Homeless Count Surges 12% to Highest-Recorded Level
The Wall Street Journal previously reported nation on track for highest-recorded increase
By Jon Kamp and Shannon Najmabadi, WSJ
Updated Dec. 15, 2023
The U.S. count of homeless people surged to the highest level on record, reaching more than 653,000 people early this year as Covid-19 pandemic-aid spending faded, new federal data show.
The increase reflects a collision of factors: rising housing costs; limited affordable housing units; the opioid epidemic; and the expired pandemic-era aid that had helped keep people in their homes, federal officials said Friday. A surge of migrants into shelters in places such as New York City, Massachusetts and Chicago also contributed to the challenge.
The data released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development show a 12% gain since last year, marking both the biggest increase and highest tally since the U.S. first published comparable data for 2007.
The Wall Street Journal in August reported that homeless counts surged a record amount this year, by roughly 11% based on then-available preliminary data from around the U.S.
“A challenging rental market with historically low vacancy rates, expiring pandemic era housing programs, and an increase in people experiencing homelessness for the first time contributed to the increase in homelessness,” said Marion McFadden, HUD’s principal deputy assistant secretary for community planning and development.
Many advocates for the homeless feared numbers would surge during the pandemic; counts instead were relatively flat. Temporary eviction moratoriums as Covid spread also helped keep vulnerable people housed, for a time.
HUD collects data from one-day counts that are taken around the U.S. early each year to estimate how many people are in shelters and on the street. The tallies are widely considered to be undercounts reflecting only a snapshot in time, but the numbers are still tracked closely to spot trends and marshal resources.
Nearly 400 homeless-aid organizations conduct the annual homeless counts, covering anything from a single large city to an entire small state.
HUD officials said the government provided resources such as grants to aid groups and housing vouchers since the homeless counts were performed. HUD also said new programs have boosted the number of homeless people who got into permanent housing in the past two years.
“The problem is that for every person who exits homelessness, another becomes homeless,” said Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
The new HUD data showed several worsening trends, including a 12% jump in individuals who are chronically homeless, which includes people with disabilities who have been unhoused for at least one year or periodically over three years. Two-thirds of them were unsheltered in this year’s count, a record.
More than one-quarter of homeless adults counted this year were over age 54, reflecting what researchers say is a mounting “silver tsunami” as the youngest baby boomers reach retirement age.
Homelessness among veterans, which had been a bright spot where the U.S. was notching some progress, rose about 7% between the 2022 and 2023 counts.
The number of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness rose 15% in this year’s count, from the prior year. The number of homeless people in families with children went up by a similar amount.
Meantime, people who identified as Hispanic or Latino made up 55% of the increase in homelessness between 2022 and 2023. Those trends largely reflect an influx of migrants in cities such as New York City and Chicago, said Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor who helped compile HUD’s homelessness reports in past years.
The counts can be affected by factors such as how many volunteers are available to find and talk to unsheltered homeless people or weather conditions on the night they hit the streets. Also, homeless-service groups were allowed to skip unsheltered counts early this year, and some did, including in Seattle and San Francisco. HUD in these cases will estimate homeless populations based on counts from the prior year.
Some places have reported decreases, including Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, Dallas, and the Newark, N.J., area. But increases were broad, hitting many of the nation’s biggest cities but also small cities and rural areas. About 70% of places that counted unsheltered individuals in 2022 and 2023 reported increases this year.
New York City and Los Angeles County accounted for nearly one in every four homeless people counted early this year. The New York City count surged 42% to more than 88,000, the highest number in the nation as migrants filled shelters there.
Los Angeles County counted 71,320 homeless people this year, up almost 10%, underscoring the challenges facing L.A. Mayor Karen Bass as she tries to tackle the problem. The Democrat’s office said that as of Nov. 30, about 21,700 people have moved inside to temporary housing so far this year, up nearly 5,000 from last year.
Volunteers will be back on the streets in January for the next national count.
Write to Jon Kamp at Jon.Kamp@wsj.com and Shannon Najmabadi at shannon.najmabadi@wsj.com
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