Dive Brief:
- The U.S. unhoused population declined a record 6.3% to 698,425 on a single night in January 2026, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Friday.
- It is the second consecutive annual decline in homelessness after record highs were recorded in 2024. The agency has not yet released its full 2026 Annual Homeless Assessment Report.
- The Trump administration credited the drop to its more aggressive anti-immigration policies. The National Alliance to End Homelessness, which conducted an independent count with similar results, credited the national decline to “local homelessness systems and front-line service providers.”
Dive Insight:
Despite a decline of around 47,000 unhoused people in HUD’s latest findings, homelessness “remains near a historic high,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a news release Friday. He blamed “housing-first” policies.
“Clearly, there is more work to do,” Turner said, adding that the agency will prioritize “treatment first” approaches to homelessness, a model that centralizes “accountability-driven engagement” and addiction recovery and services, according to HUD.
The courts have blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end funding for housing-first approaches.
“For decades, Permanent Supportive Housing has been considered the gold standard for treating those with the greatest needs,” National Alliance to End Homelessness CEO Ann Oliva said in a news release. “Yet, the program is vastly underfunded, and the Trump Administration has repeatedly attempted to defund it. This is a reckless approach that would surely erase these declines if it moves forward.”
The alliance's independent report found a 7.6% decline in sheltered homelessness, a 4.9% drop in unsheltered homelessness and a nearly 8% decline in homelessness among veterans.
The number of people experiencing chronic homelessness “remained relatively flat,” with an estimated 1% increase, the alliance found.
