The rate of unhoused individuals continued its upward trend from 2023, according to the latest data released by the federal government on Dec. 27. Per their data, the number of unhoused people recorded on a single night in January 2024 was 18% higher than the figure recorded at roughly the same point in time in January 2023.
According to USA Today, advocates for the unhoused indicated that the increases over the past few years are unlike anything they have seen, and is a concern for them.
As Ann Oliva, the CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told the outlet, “The numbers are just mind-boggling to me.”
Other experts, like Shamus Roller, the National Housing Law Project’s executive director, pointed to the conditions that drive homelessness as a factor in the increased point-in-time numbers.
“The underlying conditions driving homelessness are not going the right direction,” Roller told USA Today. “Housing affordability is worse; it’s affecting more people across the country, and so you can’t be surprised that people are essentially falling off the back of the wagon.”
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, homelessness has a more pronounced effect on racial minorities like Black Americans, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, Latinx Americans, and those listed as “Some Other Race.”
Among Black Americans, per the group’s analysis, which was last updated in 2023, despite Black Americans comprising approximately 13% of the population, they are considerably overrepresented among the unhoused.
Black Americans account for 37% of the overall homeless population and over 50% of those who are unhoused with children.
Per a press release from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, (HUD) the data likely does not reflect where things currently stand due to changed policies and conditions, some of which they denote in the press release.
According to the press release, significant progress was made among veterans through HUD’s HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program, which helped facilitate an 8% drop in veterans who are unhoused.
According to Adrianne Todman, the head of the HUD Agency, veteran homelessness has been trending downwards since 2010.
“No American should face homelessness, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring every family has access to the affordable, safe, and quality housing they deserve,” Todman said. “While this data is nearly a year old, and no longer reflects the situation we are seeing, it is critical that we focus on evidence-based efforts to prevent and end homelessness. We know what works and our success in reducing veteran homelessness by 55.2% since 2010 shows that.”
Other advocates for the unhoused, like Adam Ruege, a data analyst with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, indicated that counter to Todman’s quote, the annual point-in-time count is most likely a conservative estimate of the true value of unhoused people in America.
Ruege also pointed out that since the point-in-time count is only a figure from one night, it doesn’t sufficiently contextualize the state of homelessness over an extended period of time.
“It’s just one point in time. It’s a picture, a photograph, as opposed to a video” Ruege told USA Today.
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