In 2023, there were about 653,104 homeless people estimated to be living in the United States, the highest number of homeless people recorded within the provided time period. In comparison, the second-highest number of homeless people living in the U.S. within this time period was in 2007, at 647,258. How is homelessness calculated? Calculating homelessness is complicated for several different reasons. For one, it is challenging to determine how many people are homeless as there is no direct definition for homelessness. Additionally, it is difficult to try and find every single homeless person that exists. Sometimes they cannot be reached, leaving people unaccounted for. In the United States, the Department of Housing and Urban Development calculates the homeless population by counting the number of people on the streets and the number of people in homeless shelters on one night each year. According to this count, Los Angeles City and New York City are the cities with the most homeless people in the United States. Homelessness in the United States Between 2022 and 2023, New Hampshire saw the highest increase in the number of homeless people. However, California was the state with the highest number of homeless people, followed by New York and Florida. The vast amount of homelessness in California is a result of multiple factors, one of them being the extreme high cost of living, as well as opposition to mandatory mental health counseling and drug addiction. However, the District of Columbia had the highest estimated rate of homelessness per 10,000 people in 2023. This was followed by New York, Vermont, and Oregon.

When analyzing the ratio of homelessness to state population, New York, Vermont, and Oregon had the highest rates in 2023. However, Washington, D.C. had an estimated 73 homeless individuals per 10,000 people, which was significantly higher than any of the 50 states. Homeless people by race The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development performs homeless counts at the end of January each year, which includes people in both sheltered and unsheltered locations. The estimated number of homeless people increased to 653,104 in 2023 – the highest level since 2007. However, the true figure is likely to be much higher, as some individuals prefer to stay with family or friends - making it challenging to count the actual number of homeless people living in the country. In 2023, nearly half of the people experiencing homelessness were white, while the number of Black homeless people exceeded 243,000. How many veterans are homeless in America? The  number of homeless veterans in the United States has halved since 2010. The state of California, which is currently suffering a homeless crisis, accounted for the highest number of homeless veterans in 2022. There are many causes of homelessness among veterans of the U.S. military, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse problems, and a lack of affordable housing.

In 2023, there were an estimated 324,854 white homeless people in the United States, the most out of any ethnicity. In comparison, there were around 243,624 Black or African American homeless people in the U.S. How homelessness is counted The actual number of homeless individuals in the U.S. is difficult to measure. The Department of Housing and Urban Development uses point-in-time estimates, where employees and volunteers count both sheltered and unsheltered homeless people during the last 10 days of January. However, it is very likely that the actual number of homeless individuals is much higher than the estimates, which makes it difficult to say just how many homeless there are in the United States. Unsheltered homeless in the United States California is well-known in the U.S. for having a high homeless population, and Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego all have high proportions of unsheltered homeless people. While in many states, the Department of Housing and Urban Development says that there are more sheltered homeless people than unsheltered, this estimate is most likely in relation to the method of estimation.

Table of homeless population by Year (for years 2009 through 2012)

This statistic displays the changes occurred in the total number of homeless people in France from 2017 to 2023. We can observe that the number of homeless people stagnated at 143,000 until 2020, but reached 330,000 in 2023.

In 2022, around 32 percent of homeless people in Germany had Germany citizenship, while roughly six percent came from the European Union. The graph shows the distribution of homeless people in Germany by citizenship.

In September 2024, the number of people experiencing homelessness in the Republic of Ireland reached 14,760 people, up from just over 10,000 before the COVID-19 pandemic, and less than 4,000 in early 2015.

In 2023, the resident population of California was 38.97 million. This is a slight decrease from the previous year, with 39.03 million people in 2022. This makes it the most populous state in the U.S. Californian demographics Along with an increase in population, California’s gross domestic product (GDP) has also been increasing, from 1.7 trillion U.S. dollars in 2000 to 3.23 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. In the same time period, the per-capita personal income has almost doubled, from 33,403 U.S. dollars in 2000 to 77,339 U.S. dollars in 2022. In 2023, the majority of California’s resident population was Hispanic or Latino, although the number of white residents followed as a close second, with Asian residents making up the third largest demographic in the state. The dark side of the Golden State While California is one of the most well-known states in the U.S., is home to Silicon Valley, and one of the states where personal income has been increasing over the past 20 years, not everyone in California is so lucky: In 2023, the poverty rate in California was about 12 percent, and the state had the fifth-highest rate of homelessness in the country during that same year, with an estimated 46 homeless people per 10,000 of the population.

There are several forms, regulations and data associated with the Emergency Assistance (EA) Family Shelter Program for our business partners and constituents.

In 2023, there were an estimated 32,156 homeless people with chronic substance abuse problems living in emergency shelters in the United States. A further 65,828 homeless people with chronic substance abuse problems were unsheltered in that year.

These published reports present information from the multi-agency database Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), about people seen rough sleeping by outreach teams in London. CHAIN, which is commissioned and funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and managed by Homeless Link, represents one of the UK’s most detailed and comprehensive sources of information about rough sleeping. Services that record information on CHAIN include outreach teams, assessment centres, accommodation projects, day centres and other specialist projects. The system allows users to share information about work done with people sleeping rough and about their needs, ensuring that they receive the most appropriate support and that efforts are not duplicated. In these reports, people are counted as having been seen rough sleeping if they have been encountered by a commissioned outreach worker bedded down on the street, or in other open spaces or locations not designed for habitation, such as doorways, stairwells, parks or derelict buildings. The report does not include people from “hidden homeless” groups such as those “sofa surfing” or living in squats, unless they have also been seen bedded down in one of the settings outlined above. Separate reports are produced for London as a whole and for individual boroughs, and these are published each quarter. There are also annual reports that contain aggregated information for each full year. Interactive Visualisation Tool Quarterly Data Tool Annual Data Tool A suite of online interactive charts and maps based on CHAIN data is available by clicking the above links. The data available via these tools mirrors that presented in the published PDF documents, with the addition of filters and other enhancements to allow users to interrogate the data. The Quarterly Data Tool shows data from the last eight quarters, and the Annual Data Tool shows data from the last five years. Organisations Using CHAIN A list of the organisations which have signed the CHAIN Data Protection Agreement and are able to access the live CHAIN system is also available to download. PDF Reports & Data tables As of January 2024, published CHAIN PDF reports are accompanied by an OpenDocument Spreadsheet file providing the underlying data in an accessible aggregated tabular format. The file includes data at local authority level, and for London overall, including comparative data for previous periods. There is also an accompanying explanatory notes document, which provides important contextual information about the data. Please click the links below to download a zip file containing the PDF reports and OpenDocument Spreadsheet for the corresponding timeframe. Publication Schedule

Information

These published reports present information from the multi-agency database Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), about people seen rough sleeping by outreach teams in London. CHAIN, which is commissioned and funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and managed by Homeless Link, represents one of the UK’s most detailed and comprehensive sources of information about rough sleeping.

Services that record information on CHAIN include outreach teams, assessment centres, accommodation projects, day centres and other specialist projects. The system allows users to share information about work done with people sleeping rough and about their needs, ensuring that they receive the most appropriate support and that efforts are not duplicated.

In these reports, people are counted as having been seen rough sleeping if they have been encountered by a commissioned outreach worker bedded down on the street, or in other open spaces or locations not designed for habitation, such as doorways, stairwells, parks or derelict buildings. The report does not include people from “hidden homeless” groups such as those “sofa surfing” or living in squats, unless they have also been seen bedded down in one of the settings outlined above.

Separate reports are produced for London as a whole and for individual boroughs, and these are published each quarter. There are also annual reports that contain aggregated information for each full year.

Interactive Visualisation Tool

Quarterly Data Tool

Annual Data Tool

A suite of online interactive charts and maps based on CHAIN data is available by clicking the above links. The data available via these tools mirrors that presented in the published PDF documents, with the addition of filters and other enhancements to allow users to interrogate the data. The Quarterly Data Tool shows data from the last eight quarters, and the Annual Data Tool shows data from the last five years.

Organisations Using CHAIN

A list of the  organisations which have signed the CHAIN Data Protection Agreement  and are able to access the live CHAIN system is also available to download.

PDF Reports & Data tables

As of January 2024, published CHAIN PDF reports are accompanied by an OpenDocument Spreadsheet file providing the underlying data in an accessible aggregated tabular format. The file includes data at local authority level, and for London overall, including comparative data for previous periods. There is also an accompanying  explanatory notes  document, which provides important contextual information about the data.

Please click the links below to download a zip file containing the PDF reports and OpenDocument Spreadsheet for the corresponding timeframe.

Publication Schedule

Reports are published 1 month after the end of each quarter and one quarter after the end of each year. The linked document below provides details of forthcoming publications

Quarterly and Annual Report Schedule 2024/25

2024/25

Q3 2024/25

• <a href="https://data.london.gov.uk/download/chain-reports/59689306-6e82-4837-a757-461fc770cbc7/Greater%20London%202024-25%20Q3.pdf

The number of people considered socially vulnerable due to a lack of access to basic housing services in Mexico accounted for approximately 17.8 percent of the country's population in 2022. This represents an improvement when compared to the 19.6 percent of the Mexican population that did not have access to basic housing utilities in 2018.

In 2022, there were an estimated 196,000 Germans who were homeless. There were significantly more non-Germans who were homeless, at 411,000.

In 2023, the around 11.1 percent of the population was living below the national poverty line in the United States. Poverty in the United StatesAs shown in the statistic above, the poverty rate among all people living in the United States has shifted within the last 15 years. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines poverty as follows: “Absolute poverty measures poverty in relation to the amount of money necessary to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. The concept of absolute poverty is not concerned with broader quality of life issues or with the overall level of inequality in society.” The poverty rate in the United States varies widely across different ethnic groups. American Indians and Alaska Natives are the ethnic group with the most people living in poverty in 2022, with about 25 percent of the population earning an income below the poverty line. In comparison to that, only 8.6 percent of the White (non-Hispanic) population and the Asian population were living below the poverty line in 2022. Children are one of the most poverty endangered population groups in the U.S. between 1990 and 2022. Child poverty peaked in 1993 with 22.7 percent of children living in poverty in that year in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the child poverty rate in the United States was increasing every year; however,this rate was down to 15 percent in 2022. The number of people living in poverty in the U.S. varies from state to state. Compared to California, where about 4.44 million people were living in poverty in 2022, the state of Minnesota had about 429,000 people living in poverty.

In 2023/24 approximately 64,960 households in England were accepted for main homeless duties, whereby the relevant local authority deemed the applicant to be unintentionally homeless and eligible for assistance. Before 2018/19 the figures are noticeably higher than this, with over 56,000 main duty acceptances in 2017/18, although this is due to the introduction of other statutory homeless duties in 2018/19.

According to a study conducted between 2021 and 2022, 22 percent of people experiencing homelessness in California said that they left their last housing in the United States due to lost or reduced income. A further 12 percent cited high housing costs as the main economic reason for why they left their last housing.

In 2023, there were an estimated 67,528 severely mentally ill homeless people living outside of a shelter in the United States.

As of January 2022, around 41 percent of homeless people in Germany were single. The second largest group of homeless people were couples with children. The graph shows the family situation of homeless people in Germany.