Homelessness in the United States rose 18.1 percent this year, according to newly released data from the Department for Housing and Urban Development. Federal authorities counted 770,000 people as homeless across the country, the highest recorded number.
“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,” acting HUD secretary Adrianne Todman said in a statement. Authorities should invest in “evidence-based efforts to prevent and end homelessness,” she added.
HUD tracked a nearly 40 percent increase in family homelessness, mostly fueled by the massive influx of illegal immigrants into large cities. In 13 cities that have seen surges of illegal immigrant communities — Denver, Chicago, and New York, for example — family homelessness more than doubled, according to HUD.
Such cities have shuttled immigrant families into hotels or state-owned housing. Migrants often resort to finding shelter in homeless encampments, or receive help from nonprofits, after their allotted time in taxpayer-funded housing.
Although HUD said in its report that “some communities reported data to HUD that indicated that the rise in overall homelessness was a result of their work to shelter a rising number of asylum seekers coming into their communities,” the agency also lauded the Biden-Harris administration’s “executive action to secure our border, after Congressional Republicans blocked a bipartisan Senate bill that would have provided needed resources and authorities to help reduce irregular migration.”
“Since then, unlawful crossings at the border have dropped by more than 60%,” HUD said in a press release on Friday. “Encounters are at their lowest since July 2020. As a result, migrant arrivals to communities across the country have dropped significantly. In Chicago, for example, the migrant shelter census is down more than 60% and in Denver, the shelter census is down nearly 100%”
The HUD survey, which was completed in early January, found that nearly one-third of the 18,800 homeless people in Chicago were children. Chicago saw a 200 percent increase in its homeless population this year. Asylum-seeking families in Chicago, “including those bused or flown to Chicago from other states . . . accounted for most of Chicago’s increase in estimated homelessness,” the report added.
A record number of 371,000 illegal aliens were “encountered” by authorities at the border in December 2023 alone (the former record was 224,400 in May 2022), according to the Center for Immigration Studies. The House Committee on Homeland Security estimates that “at least 1.7 million known gotaways have evaded apprehension since FY2021.”
HUD’s report also included data that showed an 8 percent decrease in homelessness among veterans, a record low.
“This year, HUD has helped connect nearly 90,000 veteran households to stable, rental homes through the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) Program,” the agency said. “The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it has permanently housed 47,925 Veterans experiencing homelessness in FY2024 — marking the largest number of veterans housed in a single year since FY 2019.”