The Homelessness Crisis is About to Get a Lot Worse

With just weeks to go before Donald Trump waltzes back into the White House, America has an additional problem on its hands.

The homelessness rate has surged, rising by 18% in 2024 compared to last year.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual assessment report, more than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. Nearly 150,000 children experienced homelessness on a single night in 2024, a whopping 33% increase from 2023.

The number of homeless older Americans also rose, with more than 140,000 people over the age of 55 going unhoused in the U.S. this year. Nearly half of these older Americans reported living in places not meant for humans.

“No American should face homelessness, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring every family has access to the affordable, safe and quality housing they deserve,” HUD Agency Head Adrianne Todman said in a statement.

But the question remains: Why did 2024 see a surge in homelessness?

According to some experts, there are several factors that contributed to this increase, such as rising housing costs, surging immigration, and the end of many COVID-19 relief programs.

According to a Pew Charitable Trusts study, rising rental prices are directly linked to an increase in homelessness in the United States.

In other words, while homelessness often has several contributing factors, including substance abuse, mental health, weather, social safety net strength, poverty, or economic conditions, none are as impactful as the role of high housing costs.

According to the reports’ authors, “There are still places in the U.S. where levels of homelessness are low, either because those places have low-cost housing readily available—such as Mississippi, where homelessness is 10 times lower than California—or because they have rapidly added housing and made a concerted effort to reduce the ranks of residents without homes. In Houston, the rate of homelessness is 19 times lower than it is in San Francisco, even though Houston’s population has grown more than San Francisco’s in the past decade. Looking at these markets helps to show how population growth generally does not explain growth in homelessness, except in instances where there is not a sufficient increase in the housing supply.”

Interestingly, and perhaps recognizing the direct link between housing and homelessness, Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) recently announced a $65 million grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, billionaire Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife, to assist in providing affordable housing for the homeless.

Like Enterprise, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has conducted research into this important issue and reached the same conclusion, suggesting that policymakers can solve homelessness by scaling up proven solutions: rental assistance and supportive services.

In CBPP’s view, evidence shows that “we can solve homelessness if we address its primary driver: the gap between incomes and rent. Rental assistance, which closes that gap, has been proven highly effective at both rehousing people experiencing homelessness and preventing future homelessness.”

Part of the problem with the numbers we see is that cities receiving HUD assistance must report once annually and they do this in the winter when more people seek shelter.

What this means is that if the census were taken in the summer months, we would see vastly greater numbers as more people are willing to spend time on the streets in warmer weather.

Thankfully, the Biden administration made some progress, reducing homelessness not only among the general population, but among veterans as well.

The number of homeless veterans decreased nearly 12% during Biden’s term from 2023 to 2024, going from 35,000 to 32,800, a drop of about 7.5%, according to data released by HUD. This fall, the department announced veteran homelessness was at its lowest level ever since tracking began in 2009.

But with Trump coming into office, these numbers are bound to jump back up and we are likely to witness an even greater rise in homelessness in the next four years.