Number of Homeless Has Declined since 2007

Every January in communities across the country the homeless are counted in a one-night census. The recently released 2018 report on the homeless has both good news and bad. The good news is that the number of homeless has fallen considerably since 2007. The bad news is that there are still more than half a million people living in shelters or on the street and the number has increased for the past two years.

Number of homeless in the U.S.
2018: 552,830
2017: 550,996
2016: 549,928
2015: 564,708
2010: 637,077
2007: 647,258

The nationwide effort to count the homeless divides the homeless population into individuals and families with children. Of the 372,417 homeless individuals in 2018, 52 percent were in shelters and the rest were on the street. Seventy percent of homeless individuals were men and 30 percent were women, transgender, or gender non-conforming, according to the Housing and Urban Development report to Congress. Among homeless individuals, 54 percent were White, 35 percent were Black, and 19 percent were Hispanic. Among homeless families with children, Blacks accounted for 51 percent.

Not surprisingly, the most populous state also has the largest number of homeless. California accounted for 30 percent of homeless individuals in 2018 and nearly half (49 percent) of the nation's unsheltered homeless. Among cities, Los Angeles had the largest number of homeless—42,079 in 2018. New York City was second with 33,391 homeless.

The 2019 count of the homeless is happening this week—it is conducted during the last 10 days of January. The 2019 report on the homeless population will be released by the end of the year. It will show us whether the number of homeless ticked upward for the third year in a row.

Source: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, The 2018 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress

How Many Americans Have Ever Been Homeless?

More than half a million Americans are homeless on a given night, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. An annual survey, which is taken on a January night each year, counted 552,830 people homeless or in shelters in the United States in 2018.

Half a million people is a small fraction of the population on any one night. A much larger share of Americans experience homelessness at some point in their life. Among Boomers, the figure is 6.2 percent, according to a study in Demography.

The Demography study analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study—a longitudinal survey of people aged 50 or older, which included a question about homelessness ("Have you ever been homeless or lived in a shelter?") in 2012 and 2014. The researchers calculated the lifetime prevalence of homelessness for people born from 1946 through 1964 (Boomers) as a whole and by race and Hispanic origin...

Percentage of Boomers who have ever been homeless
Total: 6.2%
Blacks: 16.8%
Hispanics: 8.1%
Non-Hispanic Whites: 4.8%

After controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, the difference in the experience of homelessness between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites disappears, report the researchers. Not so the difference between Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites. Black Boomers are three times as likely as non-Hispanic White Boomers to have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, the researchers find.

"Do experiences of homelessness contribute to racial disparities in health?" they ask. "Do health disparities contribute to differences in the prevalence of homelessness? Are the two mutually reinforcing, or do they covary as products of social discrimination or economic inequalities? Future research might aim to better understand these complex pathways."

Source: Demography, Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Prevalence of Homelessness in the United States, Vol. 55, No. 6 ($39.95)