State of Homelessness in 2022

Conclusion

Due to reporting issues driven by the pandemic, we don’t know if total homelessness has increased or decreased in this country. But given the drop in sheltered homelessness and the surging costs of living nationwide, it’s likely that the U.S. is facing an acute housing and homelessness crisis.

Methodology

As mentioned, the information we analyzed on homelessness in the nation and states came from the first part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2021 Point in Time homelessness count. You can access the tables and HUD’s report to Congress here; the second part of the count data has not yet been released. As mentioned, counts of unsheltered homelessness haven’t been made available because of counting issues brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and public health emergency. Sheltered homelessness is defined as individuals living in emergency shelters, Safe Havens, and transitional housing projects.

The population data we analyzed came from the U.S. Census Bureau, which lists cities and metro areas using a different method than the HUD’s CoC. To reconcile the differences, in cases where multiple CoCs may provide services across a large metro area, such as Seattle-Tacoma, numbers for all applicable CoCs were combined.

Data appendix

Number of people experiencing sheltered homelessness per 100,000 residents by state, 2021