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Homelessness soars by record 12 percent as covid support ends, HUD says [1]

['Justine Mcdaniel', 'Adela Suliman']

Date: 2023-12-16

Homelessness in the United States soared by a record 12 percent between January 2022 and January 2023 as emergency coronavirus pandemic assistance decreased, an estimate published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development shows. The annual assessment provides a snapshot of the number of people living in shelters, in temporary housing and on the streets. It found that more than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2023, a 12 percent increase from 2022 and the highest number of people recorded as experiencing homelessness on a single night since reporting began in 2007.

The rise returns the United States to a “pre-pandemic trend” of growth between 2016 and 2020, HUD said in a statement about the data. After rising each of those years, reaching about 580,000 people in 2020, homelessness dropped in 2021 and 2022, when the government put emergency pandemic measures in place.

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The agency said many of those covid-era “resources have now expired or wound down, which has contributed to the increase in homelessness.” That includes federal, state and local safety-net measures, as well as the federal moratorium on evictions.

Advocates said the data confirmed a disheartening increase and demonstrated the consequences of a lack of fresh funding from Congress, particularly as housing costs rise and incomes can’t keep up.

The data also showed that the increase was “largely due to a sharp rise in the number of people who became homeless for the first time,” probably due to higher rental prices, fewer pandemic protections and a housing shortage, the report found.

Of these recorded in the January survey, about 6 in 10 were in an emergency shelter, transitional housing or a safe-haven program, the report found. The remaining 4 in 10 were experiencing homelessness in “places not meant for human habitation.”

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“Homelessness is solvable and should not exist in the United States,” Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia L. Fudge said in a statement.

“This data underscores the urgent need for support for proven solutions and strategies that help people quickly exit homelessness and that prevent homelessness in the first place.”

The numbers recorded in the annual one-night count are a stark undercount of all people experiencing homelessness, so they cannot be used as a census, said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

“You want to think of this as useful and a report that drives action,” he told The Washington Post. “It is a way to plan, it’s a way to look at trends.”

The covid-era funds, distributed through the American Rescue Plan Act, allowed for “significant innovations,” including sheltering people in hotels and converting temporary spaces into permanent housing, said Whitehead, who was one of the HUD report’s reviewers.

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It also showed that a significant increase in public investment can help prevent homelessness — something that has made it all the more frustrating for advocates to see the funding end without a replacement by Congress. Homeless-service providers were disappointed by a lack of funding for housing issues in the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping economic package passed in August 2022.

Whitehead said homeless services providers felt like the country was close to “a new era of homelessness resources, only to see it come crashing down.”

“It’s very disheartening,” Whitehead said.

Don Gardner, 66, of D.C., was among those who benefited from the federal government’s pandemic-era aid after losing his income and housing in 2020. He now has an apartment and employment, but he wishes the same opportunities were available to the homeless people he now works with.

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“This country could end homelessness overnight,” Gardner said, “but it’s all systemic, and it’s political and it’s a money thing.”

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The overall population of homeless people is similar to the United States’ population, Whitehead said — including children, families and seniors — but people of color, particularly Black, Indigenous and Hispanic people, experience it at a disproportionately high rate.

Homelessness among families with children rose by 16 percent, the HUD report said, while the number of homeless veterans rose by 7 percent compared with 2022’s numbers.

There was a 40 percent increase in Asian and Asian Americans experiencing homelessness, the largest of any demographic. The Latino and Hispanic population saw the largest number increase, with more than 39,000 more people homeless in January 2023 than the prior year, according to the report.

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More seniors are becoming homeless for the first time, Whitehead said, and other people are unable to withstand rising housing costs. About two-thirds of people identified in the snapshot did not report having experienced chronic homelessness.

The data highlighted in the report is “tragic, yet predictable,” the National Alliance to End Homelessness said in a joint statement with other organizations.

“There are solutions that are proven to work if they are appropriately funded,” said Ann Oliva, the nonprofit organization’s CEO. “We need sustained investment in evidence-based approaches at the federal and state levels to reverse course nationally.”

New York, California, Florida, Washington, Colorado and Massachusetts experienced the largest increases in homelessness from 2022 to 2023, the report showed.

Among the metropolitan areas with the largest increases were New York City, Los Angeles, Denver and San Diego, along with rural areas in Texas. The largest decreases were in the areas of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Richmond, Calif.; Santa Rosa, Calif.; and Santa Cruz, Calif.; along with suburban parts of Louisiana.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, urged more help for low-income people.

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“We must address the main driver of homelessness and housing instability — the gap between low incomes and rent costs,” said Peggy Bailey, the think tank’s vice president for housing and income security. “That means expanding rental assistance for all people with the lowest incomes.”

Median rents in the United States increased by 25 percent between January 2021 and June 2022, the National Low Income Housing Coalition reported in its 2023 report on housing costs.

On average, a full-time worker must make nearly $24 an hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment, a wage many Americans are not reaching. In many states, the average wage needed is much higher — in 10 states and the District of Columbia, the figures are all higher than $30 an hour.

Gardner, the D.C. resident, said he lost his work as a cobbler during the pandemic shutdown, then lost his housing when the relative he was living with died in 2020.

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He “took advantage of every opportunity the government had available,” living in a shelter in Maryland and eventually receiving unemployment benefits through the pandemic program, he said. In 2021, he was awarded an emergency housing voucher and found an apartment.

Two years later, he is living in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood. He works for the National Coalition for the Homeless and contracts through HUD as someone with lived experience — and he’s back to work as a footwear specialist.

Still, he sees the lingering effects of the pandemic every week, when he helps distribute food and medicine to people in need.

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[1] Url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/12/16/homeless-hud-data-housing/

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