Dive Brief:
- The nation’s unhoused population was 745,652 on a single night in January 2025, a 3% decrease compared with the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual homelessness assessment report.
- Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., recorded decreases in homelessness compared with 2024, with New York and Illinois seeing the largest drops in 2025 after experiencing the highest increases in 2024.
- The report said 16,931 fewer people — a 4% drop — sought emergency shelter in 2025, making it the largest contributor to the nation’s overall decline in homelessness.
Dive Insight:
The report comes as homeless advocates, who favor permanent housing programs, disagree with the Trump administration over how homelessness should be addressed. HUD framed the data as a reprimand of so-called “housing first” policies embraced by prior administrations.
“The data is clear that the status quo of ‘housing first’ has failed to meaningfully reduce homelessness, resulting in crisis levels of people living on the streets," HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a news release. "HUD is restoring its programs to advance recovery and self-sufficiency and to ensure that taxpayer-funded benefits serve American families.”
Homelessness in the U.S. reached record highs in 2024.
HUD published the 2025 homelessness assessment late Friday afternoon after delaying it since December. Turner blamed the holdup on the prolonged government shutdown last fall.
Along with an overall reduction in homelessness, the latest point-in-time count showed a 3% reduction in unsheltered homelessness compared with 2024, or a reduction of nearly 8,000 unsheltered people.
More than half of the nation’s unhoused population were in one of the country’s 50 largest cities, and 24% were in suburban areas.
California, the nation’s largest state, had the highest population of people experiencing homelessness in 2025 with 181,934, followed by New York with 145,560. Both states recorded declines in overall homelessness compared with 2024, California by 2.8% and New York by 7.9%.
Oregon recorded the largest numerical increase in homelessness compared with 2024 with 4,327, an 18.9% increase. North Carolina came in second with a 3,886-person increase in homelessness, up 33.4% compared with 2024, a rise the report credited to the effects of Hurricane Helene.
