news U.S. Homeless Population Surges by 18.1% in 2024; 770k ppl

[Cesar]

Quote

The United States saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, a dramatic rise driven mostly by a lack of affordable housing as well as devastating natural disasters and a surge of migrants in several parts of the country, federal officials said Friday.

 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said federally required tallies taken across the country in January found that more than 770,000 people were counted as homeless — a number that misses some people and does not include those staying with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own.

 

That increase comes on top of a 12% increase in 2023, which HUD blamed on soaring rents and the end of pandemic assistance. The 2023 increase also was driven by people experiencing homelessness for the first time. The numbers overall represent 23 of every 10,000 people in the U.S., with Black people being overrepresented among the homeless population.

Quote

Among the most concerning trends was a nearly 40% rise in family homelessness — one of the areas that was most affected by the arrival of migrants in big cities. Family homelessness more than doubled in 13 communities impacted by migrants including Denver, Chicago and New York City, according to HUD, while it rose less than 8% in the remaining 373 communities. Nearly 150,000 children experienced homelessness on a single night in 2024, reflecting a 33% jump from last year.

 

Several large cities had success bringing down their homeless numbers. Dallas, which worked to overhaul its homeless system, saw a 16% drop in its numbers between 2022 to 2024. Los Angeles, which increased housing for the homeless, saw a drop of 5% in unsheltered homelessness since 2023. California, the most populous state in the U.S., continued to have the nation's largest homeless population, followed by New York, Washington, Florida and Massachusetts.

Source

 

 

[NEX]

Disgusting and it's prevalent pretty much everywhere. I've visited ~15 cities in the US in the past 3 months and it's the same story pretty much everywhere. I've never seen anything remotely as bad in any other country I've visited. It's crazy how the richest country on earth is not able to do anything about its homelessness crisis. 

[Saintlor]

That's 1 in 433 people being homeless.

That's a huge amount

[harwee]

This is unfortunately obvious. Unless you're living in denial town, you can definitely see and feel it in your nearest town. Its definitely gotten worse.

[thesegayz]

Literally what happens when you let hedge funds / international money artificially affect the supply of housing available

 

make housing speculation illegal! Tax empty units. 

[Tropez]

54 minutes ago, NEX said:

Disgusting and it's prevalent pretty much everywhere. I've visited ~15 cities in the US in the past 3 months and it's the same story pretty much everywhere. I've never seen anything remotely as bad in any other country I've visited. It's crazy how the richest country on earth is not able to do anything about its homelessness crisis. 

It's unfortunately a third world country ran by corrupt oligarchs. 

[Taylena]

More proof that communism & socialism never works. Oh wait... 

[BrokenMachine]

And many of them due to insurance companies and big pharma  

[sugarysunflower]

The drugs/opioids crisis is also a contributing factor unfortunately 

[Trent W]

Tbh I've been through several countries in latin america

 

And they have no homeless people, I mean they have some but most just take care of each other in neighborhoods 

 

The US loves to make fun of Latin america but it's slowly becoming worse

 

For example in Mexico people have public insurance at least

 

 

[whiteferrari]

10 minutes ago, Trent W said:

Tbh I've been through several countries in latin america

 

And they have no homeless people, I mean they have some but most just take care of each other in neighborhoods 

 

The US loves to make fun of Latin america but it's slowly becoming worse

 

For example in Mexico people have public insurance at least

 

 

this, I have seen this also in LATAM and SA. it's shocking how uncommon seeing homeless people is considering the poverty levels

[AMIT]

Well, what do you think happens when a small group of people hoard the majority of wealth? Countless others end up with none; it's just basic logic. 

 

Homelessness is integral to Capitalism. It's even beneficial to the rich given it keeps house/rent prices up.

 

This is not a US-only problem and y'all know it. "The richest country on earth!!1" yeah because it produces a lot of stuff, but who gets to keep all that stuff and force other people to pay for it? 

[Raver]

Bidenomics impacT

[Sawk]

And how much did Elon's net worth go up by? 

[Luckitty]

it's probably going to get even worse unfortunately

 

america only cares about the %1 

[NEX]

2 hours ago, Trent W said:

Tbh I've been through several countries in latin america

 

And they have no homeless people, I mean they have some but most just take care of each other in neighborhoods 

 

The US loves to make fun of Latin america but it's slowly becoming worse

 

For example in Mexico people have public insurance at least

 

 

 

2 hours ago, whiteferrari said:

this, I have seen this also in LATAM and SA. it's shocking how uncommon seeing homeless people is considering the poverty levels

I've been living in a not so big Mexican town for the past month, which is pretty poor overall, but there are barely any homeless people here. You could count them on one hand probably.  

[Communion]

3 hours ago, thesegayz said:

Literally what happens when you let hedge funds / international money artificially affect the supply of housing available

 

make housing speculation illegal! Tax empty units. 

Yes, sister, rise up against the true enemy! ☭ 

[Antonini]

Nothing will change until we build more housing and deal with the mental health/addiction crisis that leads to people being homeless in the first place. But we also need to do something about the people on the street right now, even if it means putting them in shelters or hotels with curfews or JAIL if they're repeat offenders who've committed crimes. Lock up the NIMBYs too who try and stop every building development.  Forego the bloated and time consuming studies. The solution to this issue will upset EVERYONE. But it needs to be done!

[Cesar]

8 minutes ago, Antonini said:

Nothing will change until we build more housing and deal with the mental health/addiction crisis that leads to people being homeless in the first place. But we also need to do something about the people on the street right now, even if it means putting them in shelters or hotels with curfews or JAIL if they're repeat offenders who've committed crimes. Lock up the NIMBYs too who try and stop every building development.  Forego the bloated and time consuming studies. The solution to this issue will upset EVERYONE. But it needs to be done!

the sad thing is even the small money provided to homeless organizations, theres still leches who scam taxpayers

 

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NTW1Rc/

 

[Communion]

16 minutes ago, Antonini said:

Nothing will change until we build more housing and deal with the mental health/addiction crisis that leads to people being homeless in the first place. But we also need to do something about the people on the street right now, even if it means putting them in shelters or hotels with curfews or JAIL

...this is quite literally the opposite of what needs to be done. This rhetoric itself is often parroted and popularized by real estate developers and those who contribute to housing scarcity via price surging and want the homeless to stop eroding property values because YIMBYism/NIMBYism is a false dichotomy meant to sell a deregulatory movement as somehow progressive. It's actually bad and unethical when apartments don't have working fire escapes or elevators! 

 

People also don't become homeless due to drug addiction in some mass trend. Most drug users are largely "functional" members of society. Most wall street executives are high off coke most of their day. People starting to do drugs because they became homeless is just as common, if not more, than people becoming homeless due to drug use. With neither actually in reality being a large factor for most homeless, as there's no clear correlation between the unhoused and drug use.

 

The vast majority of homeless people are sober and surveys show a clear majority are regularly employed. 

 

The only solution to solving homelessness is - as done elsewhere - the mass building of affordable, heavily-regulated housing built to meet public need. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Communion

[Antonini]

4 minutes ago, Communion said:

...this is quite literally the opposite of what needs to be done. This rhetoric itself is often parroted and popularized by real estate developers and those who contribute to housing scarcity via price surging and want the homeless to stop eroding property values because YIMBYism/NIMBYism is a false dichotomy meant to sell a deregulatory movement as somehow progressive. It's actually bad and unethical when apartments don't have working fire escapes or elevators! 

 

People also don't become homeless due to drug addiction in some mass trend. Most drug users are largely "functional" members of society. Most wall street executives are high off coke most of their day. People starting to do drugs because they became homeless is just as common, if not more, than people becoming homeless due to drug use. With neither actually in reality being a large factor for most homeless, as there's no clear correlation between the unhoused and drug use.

 

The vast majority of homeless people are sober and surveys show a clear majority are regularly employed. 

 

The only solution to solving homelessness is - as done elsewhere - the mass building of affordable, heavily-regulated housing built to meet public need. 

Also, I never said that all homeless people are drug addicts, many are, many do try to get sober and fail, or stay sober, but drugs are often part of the story if not at the outset, they eventually get involved. Also, the vast majority of homeless people are sober? And regularly employed? A large majority? Maybe where you live! Anyway, I just listed drugs and mental health just as some examples, I didn't say all or the majority of homeless become that way due to drugs. Either way, the problem is they are homeless. 

 

We need to build more housing. Why does loosening regulations to build mean they cant be regulated afterwards to be affordable? Who said its overregulated or no regulations to the point they dont build fire escapes in buildings?  We cant just continue to do nothing and "ponder" what the best solution is or allow the building of more housing to get caught up in studies, public comment and lawsuits. 

 

 

[Into The Void]

6 hours ago, harwee said:

This is unfortunately obvious. Unless you're living in denial town, you can definitely see and feel it in your nearest town. Its definitely gotten worse.

Apparently not I live in Dallas and apparently homelessness was 16% down were doing something right here

[Letters From Adi]

Not having a home is one of the worst things that can happen. No one should even be forced to live in a car.

[Mean Trees]

@Communion Exactly! The functional drug addicts in Hollywood aren't living on Skid Row.