U.S. homelessness crisis surges to record levels alongside rising rents and immigration

Advocates demand urgent action on housing and family support while Trump promises tent cities and ‘mental institutions’

More people experienced homelessness in the United States in 2024 than at any other point within the last two decades since the federal government began tracking the crisis.

Nearly 772,000 people were experiencing homelessness across the country on a single night, marking an increase of more than 18 percent from 2023, according to an annual point-in-time survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The crisis has been fueled by the compounded effects of a lack of affordable housing, inflation, stagnant wages, high costs of living, discrimination, natural disasters, public health crises and safety nets that fail to meet rising demands for support, according to the report.

More than 770,000 people experienced homelessness in 2024, according to the federal government’s annual point-in-time survey (Reuters)

The results of the agency’s survey — which measured the state of homelessness on one night in January 2024 — reveals homelessness has surged among nearly every demographic, including more than 80,000 families with children, up nearly 40 percent from last year.

Nearly 150,000 children experienced homelessness, reflecting a 33 percent increase from last year.

Black Americans make up roughly 12 percent of the total U.S. population but 21 percent of people living in poverty and 32 percent of all people experiencing homelessness, the survey found.

And roughly one-third of homeless Americans — more than 150,000 people — have experienced homelessness for at least a year or longer.

Care providers also reported large increases in services for immigrants and refugees seeking asylum. The survey did not collect information about immigration status, but 13 communities that pointed to the U.S.-Mexico border as a significant driving factor for demands for services also reported a combined 64 percent increase in homelessness.

In 13 communities that reported being affected by immigration increases, family homelessness more than doubled.

President Joe Biden’s administration believes the survey data “likely does not represent current circumstances, given changed policies and conditions.”

HUD officials pointed to a 60 percent decrease in “unlawful” border crossings and a significant decrease in immigrant populations in shelters across the U.S., with 60 percent drops in Chicago and a nearly 100 percent drop in Denver. New York City also recently announced the imminent closures of shelters housing recently arrived immigrants.

In response to the latest survey, the administration announced the repurposing of surplus federal properties for affordable housing and homelessness services, and nearly $40 million for veterans services, among other actions.

Homeless advocacy groups have condemned rhetoric from Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk as the president-elect’s administration promises to force people experiencing homelessness into tent cities and mental institutions. (AP)

Meanwhile, state and local governments are increasingly criminalizing homelessness, from “public camping” bans to laws prohibiting sleeping in cars, loitering or asking for money. Nearly every state has at least one law on the books criminalizing homelessness.

Elon Musk — the world’s wealthiest person and a close adviser to president-elect Donald Trump — has repeatedly said he believes government agencies are behind a global conspiracy to make more people homeless to enrich the organizations working to end the crisis. He has called the word “homeless” a “lie” and “propaganda.”

Influential billionaires close to Musk and Trump and right-wing think tanks have been advancing legislation that criminalizes homelessness in Congress and at the Supreme Court, while Trump supports forcing people into treatment or mental institutions “or face arrest.”

His platform promises to “end the nightmare” of the “dangerously deranged” with a plan to “open large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified”.

He wants to “bring back mental institutions to house and rehabilitate those who are severely mentally ill or dangerously deranged with the goal of reintegrating them back into society.”

Rental costs are easily outpacing wages in nearly every metro area, and two-bedroom units at market rate are out of reach for every full-time worker earning minimum wages in any state, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (Reuters)

Rates of homelessness are also surging alongside skyrocketing housing costs.

Rents are easily outpacing salaries in nearly every U.S. metropolitan area, and a full-time worker earning minimum wage in any state cannot afford to rent a two-bedroom home at market rate. An hourly wage worker would need to make at least $15 an hour working for 104 hours a week to afford an average one-bedroom home at fair market rent.

“The answer to ending homelessness is ensuring everyone has access to safe, stable, and affordable housing,” according to Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

“Our leaders must immediately expand the resources to rehouse people without homes and assist the rapidly growing number of people who cannot afford skyrocketing rents,” she said in a statement in response to HUD’s latest report. “This record-setting increase in homelessness should sound the alarm for federal, state, and local lawmakers to advance evidence-based solutions to this crisis.”

Veterans are the only demographic that have seen a significant drop in rates of homelessness.

Homelessness among veterans dropped by more than 7 percent, with unsheltered veteran homelessness declining by more than 10 percent. Veteran homelessness has declined by 55 percent overall since 2010.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans support taking the same approach for addressing homeless veterans to end all homelessness, according to polling from Morning Consult.

“The reduction in veteran homelessness offers us a clear roadmap for addressing homelessness on a larger scale,” according to Oliva.