It’s a “housing crisis.” It’s because Republicans are evil and don’t care about the downtrodden. It’s because capitalism is cruel. It's because we don't throw enough money at the problem.
We’re talking about the homelessness crisis, and the Democrats who are in charge of many of the cities hardest hit by the devastation will blame almost anything other than their own failed policies. But according to a study from researchers at the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College—not exactly institutions known as conservative bastions—there’s another reason behind the startling rise in the homeless population, and it’s not what Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker and the mainstream media are telling you.
The study was released in April, but I can’t remember CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, or any other liberal outlet talking about it. The paper, titled simply, “Asylum Seekers and the Rise in Homelessness,” is getting renewed attention, and the abstract pretty much tells you everything you need to know:
Data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) indicate an unprecedented 43 percent increase in the number of people residing in homeless shelters in the United States between 2022 and 2024, reversing the gradual decline over the preceding sixteen years. Three quarters of this rise was concentrated in four localities – New York City, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Denver – where large inflows of new immigrants seeking asylum were housed in emergency shelters. Using direct estimates from local government sources and indirect methods based on demographic changes, we estimate that asylum seekers accounted for about 60 percent of the two year rise in sheltered homelessness during this period, challenging media and policy narratives that primarily attribute this rise to local economic conditions and housing affordability.
Read that twice; it’s pretty stunning. It’s something that critics of Joe Biden’s “let them all in” border policies and progressive mayors’ “sanctuary city” madness have known instinctively for some time now, but to see the numbers is nonetheless bracing.
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Note that the numbers the researchers provided above only describe the sheltered homeless. The number of homeless on the streets has also risen precipitously, as anyone who lives in a major city can tell you.
One of the researchers, the University of Chicago's Bruce Meyer, said, Trump’s border policies should help ease the disaster created by Democrats:
'Substantially more than half of the increase in homelessness comes from migration, rather than new individuals falling into poverty,' the University of Chicago's Bruce Meyer said.
'Federal immigration policy changes under the Trump administration that narrow pathways to asylum are likely to slow the growth of sheltered homelessness in the years ahead.'
Why haven’t you heard more about this study? Meyer thinks he knows:
Meyer said his paper, which partly backs President Donald Trump's border crackdown, was proving 'unpopular' in academic circles - a factor he believes might explain why it has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.
According to a count in 2024, more than 771,800 people are homeless in the U.S. on any given night, with the biggest numbers in New York and California—two sanctuary states with soft-on-crime laws and progressive governors.
Now we know why the numbers exploded. Thanks, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, thanks, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, thanks, former President Joe Biden and all your “progressive” brethren. You earned this.
Progressive policies have hurt America immeasurably.
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