America has a serious problem: housing the homeless. Unfortunately, each year sees even more people on the streets or in shelters, and 2024 was no different. In fact, it had the highest count on record with more than 771,800, an 18.1% increase since 2023. “The numbers are just mind-boggling to me,” Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told USA Today.
Homeless America
There are a few reasons for such an increase, according to experts. Housing costs shoulder much of the blame. As Liberty Nation News Economics Editor Andrew Moran explained, “Since the pandemic, home prices have spiked by 47%, and rents have surged 25%.”
The end of the pandemic has also aided in increasing numbers of homeless individuals and families, as the moratorium on rent increases and evictions are no longer in place. While some renters took advantage of this, staying in their homes without paying rent for months, even a year or longer, others struggled to make payments while unemployed due to businesses closing or reducing hours. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies noted that people are paying more than 30% of their income on housing.
“More people than ever need help paying rent. More people than ever are becoming homeless for the first time,” the National Alliance to End Homelessness wrote on X.
Also, homeless people received more benefits after COVID. Once the pandemic was over, however, this assistance vanished as well.
The next factor on the list is not surprising: migrants. Fiscal Year 2024 ended in October with almost three million immigrants who had entered the country illegally. Shelter facilities were overflowed with undocumented individuals and families. Tent cities were erected and stuffed to their capacities. Migrants slept in police stations, parks, airports, and anywhere else they could find.
Another contributing cause to homelessness was due to natural disasters, such as the Maui wildfires, where at least 5,000 people needed shelter.
And finally, some are blaming the activists who fought to ban homeless camps, claiming the action sent many people in search of shelter. In 2023, the Supreme Court found that outdoor sleeping bans didn’t violate the Eighth Amendment, which protects against “cruel and unusual punishment,” as well as excessive bail and fines.
The Count Is Deceiving
Although the new report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) identified more than 771,800 known unhoused people, the number is very deceiving. For one thing, the tally was taken in January 2024, nearly a year earlier.
Adam Ruege, a data analyst who works with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, told USA Today that the calculation is “fundamentally an undercount.” The HUD report does not necessarily take into account those who shelter in the winter months in cars and other structures instead of shelters. Plus, the tally is only taken from one night in the year.
“It’s just one point in time,” Ruege told the outlet. “It’s a picture, a photograph, as opposed to a video.”
One of the major concerns is the number of families without permanent homes. There was nearly a 40% rise in family homelessness in 2024, “one of the areas that was most affected by the arrival of migrants in big cities,” CBS News reported.
The HUD report revealed that families without homes more than doubled in 13 communities that were impacted by migrants, including, Chicago, Denver, and New York City – all sanctuary cities – while in the other 373 communities, that number rose by less than 8%. On that night in January, nearly 150,000 children were experiencing homelessness, a 33% increase from 2023.
Declining Homelessness
But not all the news is bad, thankfully. There are some areas where homelessness is declining. Dallas saw a 16% drop between 2022 and 2024, while Los Angeles saw a decrease of 5% in 2023.
The number of homeless veterans has also declined. From 2023 to 2024, the number decreased by about 7.5%, HUD reported, or from 35,000 to 32,800. This was the lowest level since tracking began in 2009.
The growing homelessness crisis paints a grim picture for the future, with numbers already breaking records and showing no signs of slowing down. If trends continue, 2025 could see even more devastating statistics, potentially surpassing one million unhoused individuals.
