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 ** 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 ******* 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 *******. 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.

This dataset contains estimates of homelessness, as well as estimates of chronically homeless persons, homeless veterans, and homeless children and youth provided by The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The estimates cover the period of years 2007-2017 and are at national, state and Continuums of Care (CoC) Point-In-Time (PIT) level.

In 2023, there were about ******* 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 *******. 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.

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

The graph displays the top 15 states by an estimated number of homeless people in the United States for the year 2025. The x-axis represents U.S. states, while the y-axis shows the number of homeless individuals in each state. California has the highest homeless population with 187,084 individuals, followed by New York with 158,019, while Hawaii places last in this dataset with 11,637. This bar graph highlights significant differences across states, with some states like California and New York showing notably higher counts compared to others, indicating regional disparities in homelessness levels across the country.

This report displays the data communities reported to HUD about the nature of and amount of persons who are homeless as part of HUD's Point-in-Time (PIT) Count. This data is self-reported by communities to HUD as part of its competitive Continuum of Care application process. The website allows users to select PIT data from 2005 to present. Users can use filter by CoC, states, or the entire nation.

"Ratio of Homeless Population to General Population in major US Cities in 2010. *This represents a list of large U.S. cities for which DHS was able to confirm a recent estimate of the unsheltered population. A 2010 result is only available for Seattle, WA. Other cities either did not conduct a count in 2010, or their 2010 results are not yet available. 2009 unsheltered census figures were used for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Washington, DC, and Boston; the 2007 estimate is used for Chicago. General population figures are the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau."

Homelessness data Official homelessness data is produced by local authorities through the Pathway Accommodation and Support System (PASS). PASS was rolled-out nationally during the course of 2013. The Department’s official homelessness statistics are published on a monthly basis and refer to the number of homeless persons accommodated in emergency accommodation funded and overseen by housing authorities during a specific count week, typically the last full week of the month. The reports are produced through the Pathway Accommodation & Support System (PASS), collated on a regional basis and compiled and published by the Department. Homelessness reporting commenced in this format in 2014. The format of the data may change or vary over time due to administrative and/or technology changes and improvements. The administration of homeless services is organised across nine administrative regions, with one local authority in each of the regions, “the lead authority”, having overall responsibility for the disbursement of Exchequer funding. In each region a Joint Homelessness Consultative Forum exists which includes representation from the relevant State and non-governmental organisations involved in the delivery of homeless services in a particular region. Delegated arrangements are governed by an annually agreed protocol between the Department and the lead authority in each region. These protocols set out the arrangements, responsibilities and financial/performance data reporting requirements for the delegation of funding from the Department. Under Sections 38 and 39 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 a statutory Management Group exists for each regional forum. This is comprised of representatives from the relevant housing authorities and the Health Service Executive, and it is the responsibility of the Management Group to consider issues around the need for homeless services and to plan for the implementation, funding and co-ordination of such services. In relation to the terms used in the report for the accommodation types see explanation below: PEA - Private Emergency Accommodation: this may include hotels, B&Bs and other residential facilities that are used on an emergency basis. Supports are provided to services users on a visiting supports basis. STA - Supported Temporary Accommodation: accommodation, including family hubs, hostels, with onsite professional support. TEA - Temporary Emergency Accommodation: emergency accommodation with no (or minimal) support.

The purpose of the Continuum of Care (CoC) Homeless Assistance Programs is to reduce the incidence of homelessness in CoC communities by assisting homeless individuals and families in quickly transitioning to self-sufficiency and permanent housing. The programs administered by HUD award funds competitively and require the development of a Continuum of Care system in the community where assistance is being sought. A continuum of care system is designed to address the critical problem of homelessness through a coordinated community-based process of identifying needs and building a system to address those needs. The approach is predicated on the understanding that homelessness is not caused merely by a lack of shelter, but involves a variety of underlying, unmet needs - physical, economic, and social. Funds are granted based on the competition following the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA).

"Ratio of Homeless Population to General Population in major US Cities in 2009. *This represents a list of large U.S. cities with a similar street count methodology for which DHS was able to confirm a recent Census; 2009 results are not yet available for LA, SF, and Chicago. All population figures are from the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimate."

The Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership is a voluntary federal-state enterprise created for the purpose of merging employee, and employer data to provide a set of enhanced labor market statistics known collectively as Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI). The QWI are a set of economic indicators including employment, job creation, earnings, and other measures of employment flows. For the purposes of this dataset, LED data for 2018 is aggregated to Census Summary Level 070 (State + County + County Subdivision + Place/Remainder), and joined with the Emergency Solutions Grantee (ESG) areas spatial dataset for FY2018. The Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG), formally the Emergency Shelter Grants, program is designed to identify sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons, as well as those at risk of homelessness, and provide the services necessary to help those persons quickly regain stability in permanent housing after experiencing a housing crisis and/or homelessness. The ESG is a non-competitive formula grant awarded to recipients which are state governments, large cities, urban counties, and U.S. territories. Recipients make these funds available to eligible sub-recipients, which can be either local government agencies or private nonprofit organizations. The recipient agencies and organizations, which actually run the homeless assistance projects, apply for ESG funds to the governmental grantee, and not directly to HUD. Please note that this version of the data does not include Community Planning and Development (CPD) entitlement grantees. LED data for CPD entitlement areas can be obtained from the LED for CDBG Grantee Areas feature service. To learn more about the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership visit: https://lehd.ces.census.gov/, for questions about the spatial attribution of this dataset, please reach out to us at GISHelpdesk@hud.gov. Data Dictionary: DD_LED for ESG Grantee Areas

Date of Coverage: ESG-2021/LED-2018

The DC Metropolitan Area Drug Study (DCMADS) was
conducted in 1991, and included special analyses of homeless and
transient populations and of women delivering live births in the DC
hospitals. DCMADS was undertaken to assess the full extent of the
drug problem in one metropolitan area. The study was comprised of 16
separate studies that focused on different sub-groups, many of which
are typically not included or are underrepresented in household
surveys. The Homeless and Transient Population
study examines the prevalence of illicit drug, alcohol, and tobacco
use among members of the homeless and transient population aged 12 and
older in the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Statistical Area (DC
MSA). The sample frame included respondents from shelters, soup
kitchens and food banks, major cluster encampments, and literally
homeless people. Data from the questionnaires include history of
homelessness, living arrangements and population movement, tobacco,
drug, and alcohol use, consequences of use, treatment history, illegal
behavior and arrest, emergency room treatment and hospital stays,
physical and mental health, pregnancy, insurance, employment and
finances, and demographics. Drug specific data include age at first
use, route of administration, needle use, withdrawal symptoms,
polysubstance use, and perceived risk.This study has 1 Data Set.

The Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership is a voluntary federal-state enterprise created for the purpose of merging employee, and employer data to provide a set of enhanced labor market statistics known collectively as Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI). The QWI are a set of economic indicators including employment, job creation, earnings, and other measures of employment flows. For the purposes of this dataset, LED data for 2018 is aggregated to Census Summary Level 070 (State + County + County Subdivision + Place/Remainder), and joined with the Continuum of Care Program grantee areas spatial dataset for FY2017. The Continuum of Care (CoC) Homeless Assistance Programs administered by HUD award funds competitively and require the development of a Continuum of Care system in the community where assistance is being sought. A continuum of care system is designed to address the critical problem of homelessness through a coordinated community-based process of identifying needs and building a system to address those needs. The approach is predicated on the understanding that homelessness is not caused merely by a lack of shelter, but involves a variety of underlying, unmet needs - physical, economic, and social. Funds are granted based on the competition following the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA). Please note that this version of the data does not include Community Planning and Development (CPD) entitlement grantees. LED data for CPD entitlement areas can be obtained from the LED for CDBG Grantee Areas feature service. To learn more about the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership visit: https://lehd.ces.census.gov/, for questions about the spatial attribution of this dataset, please reach out to us at GISHelpdesk@hud.gov. Data Dictionary: DD_LED for CoC Grantee Areas

Date of Coverage: CoC-2021/LED-2018

EDFacts Homeless, Neglected, or Delinquent, 2010-11 (EDFacts HND:2010-11), is one of 17 'topics' identified in the EDFacts documentation (in this database, each 'topic' is entered as a separate study); program data is available since 2005 at

EDFacts Homeless, Neglected, or Delinquent, 2011-12 (EDFacts HND:2011-12), is one of 17 'topics' identified in the EDFacts documentation (in this database, each 'topic' is entered as a separate study); program data is available since 2005 at

The Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) tracks participant outcome measures for the HVRP program. Programmatic performance outcomes are collected from grant recipients through the Technical Performance Report (TPR) form. VETS shares HVRP outcomes with the public. These data show the national level targets and outcomes for eleven (11) measures by Program Year (PY), including breakouts by subpopulation, gender, ethnicity, race, and age. The 11 measures are: 1. Number of Participants Served 2. Percentage of Total Participants Served 3. Number of Exiters 4. Percentage of Total Number of Exiters 5. Number of Participants Co-Enrolled at American Job Centers (AJCs) 6. Average Hourly Wage at Placement 7. Placement Rate (exit-based) 8. Placement Rate – Episodically Homeless (exit-based) 9. Employment Rate 2nd Quarter After Exit 10. Employment Rate 4th Quarter After Exit 11. Median Earnings 2nd Quarter After Exit

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.

The purpose of the study was to provide information about law enforcement agencies' handling of missing child cases, including the rates of closure for these cases, agencies' initial investigative procedures for handling such reports, and obstacles to investigation. Case types identified include runaway, parental abduction, stranger abduction, and missing for unknown reasons. Other key variables provide information about the existence and types of policies within law enforcement agencies regarding missing child reports, such as a waiting period and classification of cases. The data also contain information about the cooperation of and use of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).

The Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership is a voluntary federal-state enterprise created for the purpose of merging employee, and employer data to provide a set of enhanced labor market statistics known collectively as Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI). The QWI are a set of economic indicators including employment, job creation, earnings, and other measures of employment flows. For the purposes of this dataset, LED data for 2018 is aggregated to Census Summary Level 070 (State + County + County Subdivision + Place/Remainder), and joined with the Emergency Solutions Grantee (ESG) areas spatial dataset for FY2018. The Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG), formally the Emergency Shelter Grants, program is designed to identify sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons, as well as those at risk of homelessness, and provide the services necessary to help those persons quickly regain stability in permanent housing after experiencing a housing crisis and/or homelessness. The ESG is a non-competitive formula grant awarded to recipients which are state governments, large cities, urban counties, and U.S. territories. Recipients make these funds available to eligible sub-recipients, which can be either local government agencies or private nonprofit organizations. The recipient agencies and organizations, which actually run the homeless assistance projects, apply for ESG funds to the governmental grantee, and not directly to HUD. Please note that this version of the data does not include Community Planning and Development (CPD) entitlement grantees. LED data for CPD entitlement areas can be obtained from the LED for CDBG Grantee Areas feature service.

To learn more about the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership visit: https://lehd.ces.census.gov/

Data Dictionary: DD_LED for ESG Grantee Areas

Date of Coverage: ESG-2021/LED-2018 Data Updated: Annually