Homelessness up 12% to highest reported level
WASHINGTON — The United States experienced a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in Coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said Friday.
About 653,000 people were homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly pointin-time survey in 2007. The total in the January count represents an increase of about 70,650 from a year earlier.
The latest estimate indicates that people becoming homeless for the first time were behind much of the increase.
A rise in family homelessness ended a downward trend that began in 2012.
“For those on the frontlines of this crisis, it’s not surprising,” said Ann Oliva, chief executive officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge said the data underscored an “urgent need” to support proven solutions that help people quickly exit homelessness and that prevent homelessness in the first place.
Going back to the first 2007 survey, the US then made steady progress for about a decade in reducing the homeless population as the government focused particularly on increasing investments to get veterans into housing. The number of homeless people dropped from about 637,000 in 2010 to about 554,000 in 2017.
The numbers ticked up to about 580,000 in the 2020 count and held relatively steady over the next two years as Congress responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with emergency rental assistance, stimulus payments, aid to states and local governments and a temporary eviction moratorium.
Jeff Olivet, executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, a federal agency, said the extra assistance “held off the rise in homelessness that we are now seeing.” He said numerous factors are behind the problem.
“The most significant causes are the shortage of affordable homes and the high cost of housing that have left many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness,” Olivet said.