It’s strange how bad news on the state of the nation feels these days. It could be terrible educational data, income trends, crime statistics, excess deaths, substance abuse, mental illness, or any other category. All are dreadful. When the news hits our feed, our first thought is alarm but our second is: of course; this is entirely to be expected.
This was my response to the incredible new report from Housing and Urban Development on homelessness in America. In fact, I’m surprised it is not worse. It might be actually, given the imprecision of such government reporters and the way Biden administrative agencies work so hard to downplay the decline over which this administration has presided.
Most people know all of this intuitively. The homeless are everywhere these days, even in small towns they never had this issue before. As for the cities, the prevalence is shocking.
• On a single night in 2023, roughly 653,100 people—or about 20 of every 10,000 people in the United States—were experiencing homelessness. Six in ten people were experiencing sheltered homelessness—that is, in an emergency shelter (ES), transitional housing (TH), or safe haven (SH) program—while the remaining four in ten were experiencing unsheltered homelessness in places not meant for human habitation.
• Experiences of homelessness increased nationwide across all household types. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 12 percent, or roughly 70,650 more people.
• The 2023 Point-in-Time (PIT) count is the highest number of people reported as experiencing homelessness on a single night since reporting began in 2007. The overall increase reflects the increases in all homeless populations. Homelessness among persons in families with children experiencing homelessness rose by 16 percent. Similarly, the rise in individuals experiencing homelessness was 11 percent.
• People who identify as Black, African American, or African, as well as Indigenous people (including Native Americans and Pacific Islanders), continue to be overrepresented among the population experiencing homelessness. People who identify as Black made up just 13 percent of the total U.S. population and 21 percent of the U.S. population living in poverty but comprised 37 percent of all people experiencing homelessness and 50 percent of people experiencing homelessness as members of families with children.
• People who identify as Asian or Asian American experienced the greatest percentage increase among all people experiencing homelessness. Between 2022 and 2023, there was a 40 percent increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness who identify as Asian and Asian American (3,313 more people). This increase was greatest among all racial and ethnic groups experiencing unsheltered homelessness, where the number of people identifying as Asian or Asian American increased by 64 percent between 2022 and 2023 (2,774 more people).
• The largest numerical increase in people experiencing homelessness was among people who identify as Hispanic ... increasing by 28 percent or 39,106 people between 2022 and 2023. People who identify as Hispanic ... made up 55 percent of the total increase in people experiencing homelessness between 2022 and 2023. Most of this increase (33,772 people) was for people experiencing sheltered homelessness.
• Six of every 10 people experiencing homelessness did so in an urban area (59 percent), with more than half of all people counted in the Continuums of Care (CoCs) that encompass the nation’s 50 largest cities (53 percent). The remaining four of every ten people who experienced homelessness were located in largely suburban areas (23 percent) and largely rural areas (18 percent). These patterns hold across people experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness.
• Seven in ten people experiencing homelessness (72 percent) did so in households without children present. The number of individuals experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness is the highest it has ever been since data reporting began in 2007. Compared with 2007, 13 percent more individuals were experiencing homelessness in 2023. Increases were highest for unsheltered individuals, which increased by 20 percent (39,598 more people). Experiences of sheltered homelessness also increased, by seven percent or about 15,000 more individuals.
• Nearly three of every 10 people experiencing homelessness (28 percent or roughly 186,100 people) did so as part of a family with children. The number of people in families with children who were experiencing homelessness increased by more than 25,000 people (or 16 percent) between 2022 and 2023, ending a downward trend in families experiencing homelessness that began in 2012. This overall increase in the number of families with children experiencing homelessness between 2022 and 2023 reflects a 17 percent increase in the number of families with children experiencing sheltered homelessness (24,966 more people).
• On a single night in 2023, more than 34,700 people under the age of 25 experienced homelessness on their own as “unaccompanied youth.” These unaccompanied youth made up 22 percent of all people under the age of 25 who were experiencing homelessness. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of unaccompanied youth increased by 15 percent (4,613 more youth). The number in 2023 is similar to the number of unaccompanied youth observed in 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic.
• More than one in five people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2023 was age 55 or older. More than 98,000 people experiencing homelessness were aged 55 to 64, and almost 39,700 people were over age 64. Nearly half of adults age 55 or older (46 percent) were experiencing unsheltered homelessness in places not meant for human habitation.
• In 2023, 35,574 veterans were experiencing homelessness—22 of every 10,000 veterans in the United States. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness increased by seven percent (2,445 more veterans) between 2022 and 2023. The increase included a 14 percent rise in the number of unsheltered veterans (1,943 more veterans) and a three percent increase in veterans experiencing sheltered homelessness (502 more veterans). Despite increases in experiences of veteran homelessness between 2022 and 2023, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness are 52 percent lower than it was in 2009, the baseline year for reporting veterans experiencing homelessness in the AHAR.
• About one-third (31 percent) of all individuals experiencing homelessness reported having experienced chronic patterns of homelessness, or 143,105 people. This is the highest number of individuals experiencing chronic patterns of homelessness counted in the PIT count since these data were first reported in 2007. Two-thirds of individuals experiencing chronic patterns of homelessness, or almost 93,000 people, were counted in unsheltered locations. This is also the highest number recorded.
You get the picture. This is an extremely tragic state of affairs. And it makes no sense. With vast land and vast wealth, there is no reason for this problem to be happening much less getting much worse. We can seek and find many answers as to why. They trace to tremendous substance abuse problems, mental illness, growing despair, and poverty. All these are factors. If you know anything about the homeless population, you know that there are a diversity of factors.
All housing problems are impacted by the two great forces of supply and demand. Why is there a mismatch here? Development restrictions are limiting the supply, no question. That is especially true in California and many cities around the country where it is simply too expensive or too restrictive for builders to satisfy the demand, particularly for low-income renters.
The Supreme Court eventually rejected this idiotic and anti-freedom law. But by then, the damage was done. From then on, the standards for qualifying for an apartment lease or mortgage suddenly grew extremely tight. Understandably so. No landlord or apartment owner, or mortgage holder of rental units, would ever again take a risk on a marginal renter. They wanted only people with vast evidence of 1) a great credit score, 2) low debt liabilities, and 3) a consistent and high flow of verified income.
Think about those three conditions. How many Americans are excluded by these standards? Tens of millions. Indeed, millions of Americans who are now safely in apartments would have a much harder time qualifying for a new place if they have to move today. As a result, they are locked into their current living arrangements.
We cannot fault the landlords here. Their property rights were attacked at the most fundamental level. They will never again, at least for a generation, take a risk on anyone. Even the smallest blemish on an applicant’s record is enough to tank a lease. And then what do people do? Stay with family or stay with friends, if they have the room and if they have family and friends. But many socially and economically marginal people do not have either.
As a result, they are on the streets.
The tragedy is deeply heartbreaking, and surely it is an unintended consequence of extremely bad government policy. It never should have happened. By the way, do you know the CDC’s rationale in doing this? It was because, they said, they didn’t want evicted tenants with COVID wandering the streets. True story.
“Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or congregated settings—like homeless shelters—by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.
That’s what the government said. It truly boggles the mind. Agencies should never ever have such unchecked power to trample on the rights of Americans!
Combine that with vast depression and economic hardship and you have this report. Again, this should never happen in the United States but here we are.
