Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Homelessness in the U.S. increased by 18% from 2023 to 2024.
- Critics argue the housing-first approach is ineffective, citing a 32.9% rise since 2019.
- The Biden administration emphasizes evidence-based efforts, while Trump proposes treatment-focused solutions.
SALT LAKE CITY — The federal government's annual point-in-time report found that homelessness increased by 18% nationwide from January 2023 to January 2024, reaching a record level of nearly 771,500 people experiencing homelessness on a single night.
The newly-released report, compiled for Congress by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, estimated that the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 33% over the last four years, a figure that includes a 40% increase in sheltered homeless people and a 21% increase in unsheltered homeless people.
Some of this increase was driven by a surge in asylum-seeking immigrants which contributed to a 39% increase in family homelessness and a 33% increase in child homelessness across the country, the report found, with an increase of more than 100% among homeless families in the 13 communities that said they were greatly affected by migration.
"No American should face homelessness, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring every family has access to the affordable, safe, and quality housing they deserve," Housing and Urban Development agency head Adrianne Todman said. "While this data is nearly a year old, and no longer reflects the situation we are seeing, it is critical that we focus on evidence-based efforts to prevent and end homelessness."
Todman highlighted the 8% decrease in homeless veterans from 2023 to 2024, saying the drop is evidence in favor of more targeted funding approaches. The agency emphasized how high rental costs have exacerbated the problem of homelessness and claimed that the housing agency oversaw 435,000 new low-income rental units added in the first three quarters of 2024.
Over the last four years, the Biden administration has focused on a housing-first approach to homelessness, which emphasizes getting people who are homeless into permanent subsidized housing that is not tied to behavioral requirements like sobriety or program participation.
But critics of that approach argue it is costly and has failed to help keep people off the streets, and they instead recommend states focus on treatment-first and temporary housing solutions.
Does housing first help or hurt?
President-elect Donald Trump's former homelessness czar, Robert Marbut, said the four-year spike in homelessness — ending with the largest number of recorded homeless individuals since data collection began in 2007 — suggests that a focus on housing homeless individuals before implementing treatment requirements leads to more homelessness instead of less.
"The skyrocketing increase in homelessness over the last four years of 32.9% clearly shows the housing first approach has not worked," Marbut told the Deseret News in a statement. "Rather than realizing the mistakes of housing first, the Biden-Harris administration is asking for even more money."
Funding for housing-first initiatives have tripled over the last decade, Marbut said, while the number of those experiencing homelessness has increased by 21% since 2010.
Marbut, who was the founding president of San Antonio's homeless resource campus Haven for Hope, said housing first "is the problem, not the solution," and called for greater resources to treat mental illness and substance abuse.
Since the January point-in-time count was conducted, the housing agency has announced over $7.5 billion in new funding opportunities, in the form of federal subsidies, grants and direct awards, according to the agency report.
While the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Biden administration has recommended prioritizing new programs to quickly reconnect homeless individuals to housing, the incoming president has focused on public safety.
In a policy video released in April 2023, Trump promised to "use every tool, lever and authority to get the homeless off our streets — we want to take care of them but they have to be off our streets."
Trump called for a ban on urban camping, with an option for those who are arrested to receive treatment and services in "tent cities" on "inexpensive land" or to be taken to state mental institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that cities may ban people from sleeping or camping on public property.
"This strategy will be far better and also far less expensive than spending vast sums of taxpayer money to house the homeless in luxury hotels without addressing their underlying issues," Trump said. "This is how I will end the scourge of homelessness."
A jump in chronic homelessness
During Biden's presidency, the number of those experiencing chronic homelessness has risen from just under 128,000 to 152,600, the greatest number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness since data collection began.
The number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness increased by 7% from 2023 to 2024, according to the latest point-in-time count.
Chronic homelessness is used to describe an individual with a disability who has continuously experienced homelessness for more than one year or who has experienced homelessness at least four times over the course of three years for a total of 12 months.
In a breakdown of the homelessness population, the agency report found that at least 140,000 people experiencing homelessness in January of 2024 suffered from severe mental illness and at least 112,600 suffered from chronic substance abuse.
The point-in-time count identified 3,869 individuals experiencing homelessness in Utah, including 906 who were classified as chronically homeless, 1,378 who were severely mentally ill and 839 who had chronic substance abuse.
