The US is set to break a new record number of homeless people with more than half a million people living on the street this year.
Data collected and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal from more than 250 homeless organizations have counted at least 550,000 homeless people so far, a 10 percent rise from last year’s reports. The numbers gathered from cities and rural areas show homelessness as it was on a single night earlier this year.
The upward trend means that the US will probably reach and pass the 2023 estimate of 653,000 homeless people. It’s the highest number since the government began sharing such data in 2007.
The final estimate of the number of unhoused people will depend on data not yet reported from areas such as New York City, which had the highest population of any city in 2023.
Contributing to the most recent rise are migrants bused by Texas to cities such as Chicago and Denver. Large numbers of migrants have also arrived in New York, increasing the numbers last year.
In reality it is probably double or triple that.
I used to be a data analyst for a non profit assisting the homeless.
650k comes from the Point In Time, PIT count.
There is 0 consistent or established methodology for how to actually do the count across the country.
Every government agency and non profit in every city and county does it differently, and then it all gets amalgamated in inconsistent ways at multiple stages, by multiple different agencies.
Does living in a car or RV count as homeless?
Does jumping from motel to motel because you have an eviction and can’t rent anywhere count?
Does living in a managed tent city or tiny home community count?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, for all those.
Are you currently living in a shelter, which may or may not only allow you to stay inside during evenings, regardless of inclement weather or your disabilities, and lock you out if you arrive late, which almost certainly will kick you out after 30 or 60 or 90 days, regardless if you’ve found a home or not?
Not homeless.
Beyond stuff like that… what, do people think that teams of demographers go around and personally locate and record every single homeless person in the country?
Fuck no, they count the people at the most stationary, most visible, least dangerous encampments.
…
The way I estimate its two or 3 times the PIT count is from the number of requests we got for assistance we literally didnt have the resources to provide, and then scale appropriately.
Its as methodologically sound as the PIT count.
That’s closer to ‘does not have a permanent residential address capable of receiving mail.’
…
Try setting up a (non prepaid) phone plan, replacing a stolen ID, setting up a debit card or SNAP account without a permanent residential address capable of receiving mail.
99% chance you can’t.
Try getting an apartment with no previous address whatsoever for 2 or 5 or 10 years, god knows what kind of credit score.
99.99% impossible.
…
EDIT: When they say migrants, they don’t mean foreign migrants, from other countries, exclusively.
Its mostly internal migrants. American, homeless citizens, who just get round up and shipped to somewhere Republicans are not in charge of.
In reality it is probably double or triple that.
Yup, I’ve read articles in NYT or WSJ (kinda forgot), about single mom, daughter and her dog living in a car because they couldn’t afford the rent.
Yep, I am totally convinced that at bare minimum a million Americans live like this.
Car breaks down? Gets in an accident? Can’t afford repairs? Can’t afford gas? Parked somewhere too obvious? Can’t make payments and repo people find you?
All gone, excepting what you can carry, maybe.
I wonder what percentage of these people wouldn’t be in this situation if we had socialized medicine? Or if Regan hadn’t shut down the mental hospitals in the 80s? I realize that not all homeless people are schizophrenic, or addicts, or victims of medical debt — but it would probably explain why the US has a larger share of this problem.
Probably the most common way to become homeless is to flee domestic violence and be poor.
If not that, be poor, lose your job, get evicted.
Being homeless causes you to become mentally ill and drug addicted. Constant violent trauma, starvation and exposure does that.
We would need socialized medicine and socialized housing to solve the problem.
We have neither. Section 8 is a fucking joke, as in, its called Section 8 because it’ll take you 8 years to get a place.
And theyre almost all slums run by slumlords.
I think it’s because of the unprecedented amount of wealth hoarding by the .01 percent accompanied by unprecedented inequality and distribution of wealth.
Unfortunately some people don’t want help, either.
Mental hospitals were not good places. What we have now is a lot better. It’s not an easy thing to solve either way.
Edit. Healthcare for everyone would absolutely help a shit ton though, yes.
I have yet to hear a politician putting forth a plan to address real estate speculation and exploitation. They all just give lip service to building more dwellings; which will do jack shit unless you address the major cause of the problem.
“We’re number one! We’re number one!”
–America, failing to mention what it’s number one at
Something something…bootstraps!
In this case many homeless literally do not even have bootstraps.
Most people don’t have bootstraps anymore. It’s getting pretty damned hard to find a good pair of boots.
So NYC and Chicago are totally cool with Texas dropping a bunch of homeless people on their porch? If Texas has such a big issue with migrants then why are they shipping them thousands of miles from the border instead of back across it?
