The US homelessness crisis at federal scale: data, programs, funding, and the populations most affected.
In January 2024, the Point-in-Time count found 771,480 people experiencing homelessness on a single night across the United States — the highest number since HUD began tracking in 2007 and an 18 percent increase over the prior year. The federal homelessness response — the Continuum of Care program, Emergency Solutions Grants, HUD-VASH, HMIS, and coordinated entry — distributes approximately $5.4 billion annually through an architecture built by the McKinney-Vento Act (1987) and restructured by the HEARTH Act (2009). These articles examine the national picture: who is experiencing homelessness, how the federal system works, where the money goes, and what the evidence says about who is most affected and what has actually worked.
771,480 people on a single night in January 2024 — the highest count ever recorded, driven by expiring pandemic protections, rising housing costs, and new immigrant arrivals in shelter systems.
Read moreFrom the McKinney-Vento Act in 1987 to the HEARTH Act in 2009 — how the federal government built the architecture of coordinated entry, HMIS, and the $3.6 billion CoC program.
Read more$5.4 billion in dedicated federal programs, $46 billion in pandemic-era emergency rental assistance, and the vast gap between what is spent and what the affordable housing deficit demands.
Read moreA 55 percent reduction since 2010, 88 communities at functional zero, and the clearest proof that homelessness is solvable when the system commits the resources.
Read moreBlack Americans: 12 percent of the population, 37 percent of people experiencing homelessness. The systemic causes of a three-to-one disparity that has persisted across every year of data.
Read more313,000 people sleeping on streets, in vehicles, and in encampments — 40.6 percent of the total — concentrated in Western and Sun Belt states where shelter has not kept pace with need.
Read moreHow Texas state policy shapes homelessness outcomes across 254 counties and eleven Continuums of Care.
Learn moreHow wealthy nations define, count, and address homelessness — and what the international evidence says about what works.
Learn moreHow homelessness connects with healthcare, criminal justice, housing markets, and other systems.
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