Homelessness rates jumped by double-digits in 2024 as Americans battled to afford housing [View all]

Source: USA Today

Published 11:30 a.m. ET Dec. 27, 2024


More Americans were homeless this year compared to 2023, as families continued struggling to afford rent and other basic necessities, federal officials announced Friday. Across the U.S., more than 771,800 people lived without housing in 2024, according to a count conducted annually taken on a single night in January.

The number for January 2024 is 18.1% higher than in 2023, when officials counted about 650,000 people living in homeless shelters or in parks and on streets. In 2022, the population of people experiencing homelessness was around 580,000. "The numbers are just mind-boggling to me," Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told USA TODAY.

Many cities have struggled to build more affordable housing in recent years, while some communities have pushed for harsher laws banning tents and sleeping in public spaces. More local leaders across the U.S. need to invest in strategies to keep people in their homes when money is tight, experts told USA TODAY, otherwise the unhoused population will continue to grow.

"The underlying conditions driving homelessness are not going the right direction," National Housing Law Project Executive Director Shamus 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." Senior administration officials told reporters on Friday that the increase was due to a combination of housing costs, an influx of migrants in shelters and natural disasters such as the Maui wildfires that left people in emergency shelters.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/12/27/how-many-people-are-homeless-us-2024/77020773007/