Estimates of All People Experiencing Homelessness in the United States
A not-so-short report made shorter by me on homelessness during the pandemic. It is not a terrible read. Plenty of charts and graphs to help explain the words. Dive into it, it is pretty good.
The 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR to Congress) Part 1: Point-In-Time Estimates of Homelessness, December 2024
National Estimates of Homelessness in the United States
The estimates presented reflect national data collected on the number of people experiencing homelessness during a single point-in-time (PIT) count that occurred during the last 10 days in January 2024. The PIT count offers a snapshot of the number of people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a single night. Sheltered homelessness includes people who were staying in emergency shelters (ES), transitional housing (TH) programs, or safe havens (SH) on the night of the count. It does not include people living in housing supported by rapid rehousing (RRH) programs, people in permanent supportive housing (PSH), or people in other permanent housing programs (OPH).
The PIT count also includes the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidance defines unsheltered homelessness as sleeping in places not meant for human habitation such as sidewalks, abandoned buildings, bus stations, and vehicles parked for long periods. Because of the difficulty of locating people in some of these situations and differences in local capacity to conduct the unsheltered count, the actual number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness could be larger than reported.
The United States announced an end to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) public health emergency in May 2023, and the 2024 national PIT counts reflect a returning to post-pandemic shelter use. Many shelters that had reduced shelter capacity through de-concentration (social distancing) efforts had gone back to full capacity by the time of the 2024 count. The strengthening of safety net programs, income protections, and eviction moratoria (bans) in-place during the pandemic, which helped to prevent some people from entering into homelessness, had also expired. For all these reasons, comparisons to the pandemic years should be made with caution.
On a single night in January 2024, 771,480 people experienced homelessness in the United States, the largest number since data collection began and an overall increase of 19 percent since 2007. Compared with 2007, 124,222 more people experienced homelessness in 2024. Between 2023 and 2024, the increase of 118,376 people was largely driven by an increase in the sheltered population, which rose by 25 percent (100,762 more people). The number of people experiencing sheltered homelessness in 2024 was larger than the pre-pandemic sheltered population.
Two-thirds of all people experiencing homelessness in 2024 were in households without children (i.e., individuals). For further detail on people experiencing homelessness by household type, see Chapters 2 and 3.
[OUR STATE] IS 21,000 HOUSING UNITS SHORT OF PROPERTIES THAT WOULD BE CONSIDERED AFFORDABLE TO EXTREMELY LOW-INCOME RENTERS—THUS WE EXPECT HOMELESSNESS POPULATIONS TO CONTINUE TO INCREASE. PROGRAMS HAVE ALSO HAD INCREASED BED UTILIZATION RATES AS THEY HAVE ROLLED BACK COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS, MAKING MORE BEDS AVAILABLE FOR PEOPLE WHO WOULD OTHERWISE BE UNSHELTERED.
CoC in the Mid-Atlantic
Communities reported that increases in the sheltered population reflected: increased shelter capacity, the ending of eviction moratoria (bans) and other programs designed to prevent experiences of homelessness during the pandemic, a shortage of affordable housing, natural disasters that displaced people from their homes, and rising numbers of people immigrating to the U.S. Increases in the unsheltered population also were connected to a lack of affordable housing and the end of pandemic era protections but also to lack of shelter capacity in some communities.
Demographic Characteristics
In 2024, HUD made significant changes to the way the Point-in-Time count collected data on gender and data on race and ethnicity. People were able to identify both their gender and their race more inclusively, by selecting more than a single gender or race. Hispanic/Latina/e/o identity, historically collected separately, is now listed among the race categories. Given these changes, numerical comparisons to prior years (i.e., changes in the number of people experiencing homelessness) for gender and race are not included in the report.
The demographic characteristics of people experiencing homelessness vary considerably by household type and shelter status and reflect the large percentage of individuals among the total population of people experiencing homelessness. Detailed characteristics are shown separately for individuals in Section 2 of this report and for families with children in Section 3.
In 2024, more than one of every four people experiencing homelessness was a child under the age of 18 (19%) or a young adult between the ages of 18 and 24 (8%). Demographics differ depending on the type of homelessness experienced, with few children experiencing unsheltered homelessness and more middle aged adults making up the unsheltered population. People between the ages of 35 and 54 make up almost half of the total number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
While all populations saw increases in the number of people experiencing homelessness between 2023 and 2024, the largest percentage increases were among children (under the age of 18), which increased by 32 percent, followed by young adults aged 25 to 34 which increased by 24 percent (see Appendix B)
Six of every 10 people experiencing homelessness in 2024 were men or boys. This share is even higher in the unsheltered homelessness in 2024 were men or boys. This share is even higher in the unsheltered population, where men and boys make up nearly 70 percent of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
The shelter status of people experiencing homelessness varied considerably within gender categories. People experiencing homelessness identifying as women or girls had the highest sheltered rate (72%), while those identifying as gender questioning – though the number was small – had the highest unsheltered rate (81%).
To read more of this report, you can find it here: The 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR to Congress) Part 1: Point-In-Time Estimates of Homelessness, December 2024. Or you can wait for me to present more of it.