Every year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) releases a report called the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR), which measures homelessness levels in this country. Last December, HUD released its 2024 AHAR and the findings are disturbing.
It is important to note that the report does not count those without housing of their own who are living with family or friends, so it is safe to assume the full actual numbers are even higher.
Some of the key factors in these numbers include rising rents, the ending of pandemic assistance programs, an influx of migrants increasing homeless numbers, and the lack of affordable housing in this country. The only group that saw a decrease in homelessness from 2023 to 2024 is veterans.
Here are some key points from the report showing the increase/decrease from 2023:
Overall: ▲18.1%
Families with children: ▲39.4%
Children: ▲33%
Individuals: ▲9.6%
Veterans: ▼7.6% (Unsheltered veterans: ▼10.7%)
The investments in housing and assistance for veterans are clearly responsible for the decreases in their numbers. Even the director of the National Alliance to End Homelessness highlights this:
"The reduction in veteran homelessness offers us a clear roadmap for
addressing homelessness on a larger scale."
"With bipartisan support, adequate funding, and smart policy solutions,
we can replicate this success and reduce homelessness nationwide.
Federal investments are critical in tackling the country’s housing
affordability crisis and ensuring that every American has access to safe,
stable housing."
—Ann Oliva, CEO of National Alliance to End Homelessness
Black persons, the largest group of minorities in America, had an increase in homelessness of 32%, while comprising roughly 15% of the population.
On average, rental costs in this country increased 18% from 2023 to 2024. (I can tell you my rent increased more than that.) Early reports for this year so far show only slight increases, but we still have half of a year to go.
Of the current numbers of the homeless, 64% were in sheltered locations, while 36% were living without any shelter.
Shelters saw a 14% increase in people staying in them, often at or beyond capacity; many times, unable to help due to sheer numbers. Food banks are, and have been, seeing a marked increase in people needing their assistance. Food instability is at some of its highest levels in years.
Homelessness numbers in this country have increased every year since 2016.
According to the website HomelessLongIsland.org, homelessness in America has increased more than 130% in the last fifty years. (The peak in the last fifty years was 200% from 1990-2000.)
from HomelessLongIsland.org -- May 25, 2025
Charles Dickens once queried, "Is it better to have had something and lost it, than never to have had it at all?" Many times, the idea of loving someone else is applied to this in terms loving someone and losing that love is better than never having that love at all. With homelessness, however, I would say the same kind of application is not the same as love. Poet Munia Khan sums it up in this quote:
The approximate total number of persons who are homeless in this country is well over 750,000. Over three-quarters of a million persons! There are approximately a1most 15,000,000 unoccupied homes in this country. Fifteen million! The math on this seems pretty simple.
If you take the unoccupied homes numbers and, to account for homes that are in extreme disrepair and simply not habitable, you cut the number in half... no... Let's be overly pessimistic and cut that number by three-quarters. The number of unoccupied homes goes from just shy of 15,000,000 down to approximately 3,725,000 homes. That roughly translates to almost 3,000,000 homes more than those who are homeless.
In short, with plenty of investments in infrastructure, homelessness in this country is conquerable!
And that's something that should be already taking place in a leader of the industrialized world. We need more people raising this issue with their elected local, state, and federal officials, and, perhaps more importantly, the will
As far too many of us lack housing, too many of those with the power to conquer this lack that will. That needs to change.
Terry
