More People Are Getting Moved Out of Homelessness, But Just as Many Are Losing Homes

Friday, December 23rd, 2022 -- 11:01 AM

(By Jennifer Ludden, Wisconsin Public Radio) More people than ever are being moved out of homelessness in the U.S., just over 900,000 a year on average since 2017.

According to Jennifer Ludden with Wisconsin Public Radio, the problem is that about the same number or more have lost housing in the past few years. The Biden administration's latest plan to fight the homelessness crisis, released Monday morning, calls for more action to keep people from losing their housing in the first place.

"We've gotten very, very good at providing supportive housing for people," says Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which developed the plan.

"We've not done a great job as a nation of turning off the faucet." The new plan includes a range of ways to boost the supply of affordable housing, as well as increase the number of emergency shelters and support programs.

But its biggest change is a call for the "systematic prevention of homelessness," focusing on those who are struggling to keep them from losing their housing. It sets an ambitious goal to reduce the number of unsheltered people by 25% by 2025, and calls on states and local governments to use it as a model.

After a steady rise since 2016, the number of people experiencing homelessness has stabilized, according to data also released Monday. There were 582,462 on a single night in January this year, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That's only slightly more than the previous full count, in 2020, before the pandemic disrupted the process. Over the course of this year, more than a million individuals and families were without housing at some point, and they were disproportionately people of color, a disparity the plan aims to address.

Most individuals were out on the streets rather than in shelters, a shift that's raised awareness of the crisis but has also led to more communities cracking down on encampments and criminalizing sleeping or even sitting in certain public spaces.

Olivet and local advocates credit the array of federal financial help during the pandemic for preventing a sharp spike in homelessness. But with much of that aid now gone, they warn the numbers might go up again.

The latest data also shows big differences among certain groups. The numbers of unhoused veterans, families and youths are down. The numbers for single adults and those with disabilities are up.

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