US homelessness up 18 percent in last year amid cost of living crisis

Continued rise in homelessness in the United States driven largely by lack of affordable housing options, experts say.

The number of people living in homelessness in the United States has increased by 18 percent over the last year, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said in a new report.

Data released on Friday showed that more than 771,000 people were experiencing homelessness across the country, according to an annual count that was carried out on a single night in January 2024.

The figure — which HUD said was the highest-ever recorded — includes people staying in emergency shelters, safe havens, transitional housing, or in unsheltered locations in the US.

It does not include those living in certain other forms of housing instability, such as people staying with a friend or family member because they lack shelter of their own.

“Our worsening national affordable housing crisis, rising inflation, stagnating wages among middle- and lower-income households, and the persisting effects of systemic racism have stretched homelessness services systems to their limits,” the department’s report (PDF) reads.

Homelessness has been rising in the US for years, driven largely by a lack of affordable housing options in cities across the country. In figures released last year, HUD found that homelessness had increased by 12 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Sprawling tent cities and encampments also have sprung up in many US cities amid the increased homelessness rates.

While some cities have bolstered programmes aimed at getting people off the streets and into shelters or temporary housing, others have imposed harsh measures that critics say have penalised or even criminalised homelessness.

One of the most alarming findings of Friday’s HUD report was a significant increase in the number of children experiencing homelessness.

Nearly 150,000 children were living in homelessness in the US this year, the department said — an increase of 33 percent compared with 2023.

“Between 2023 and 2024, children (under the age of 18) were the age group that experienced the largest increase in homelessness,” the report found.

While the report primarily attributed the overall uptick in homelessness to a lack of affordable housing, HUD said that other factors also played a role, including natural disasters such as a Maui wildfire that displaced people from their homes.

A homeless encampment in the doorway of a closed business in New York City [File: Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images]

An increase in migrants staying in shelters in major US cities, including New York, Denver, and Chicago, also contributed to the increase, as did the expiration of benefits and protective rules meant to help people hold onto their housing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition said Friday’s report underscored “the urgent need for policymakers to invest in proven solutions to the affordable housing & homelessness crisis”.

“Increased homelessness is the tragic, yet predictable, consequence of underinvesting in the resources and protections that help people find and maintain safe, affordable housing,” Renee Willis, the group’s incoming interim CEO, said in a statement.

“As advocates, researchers, and people with lived experience have warned, the number of people experiencing homelessness continues to increase as more people struggle to afford sky-high housing costs.”

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Al Jazeera and news agencies