Migrants and End of Covid Restrictions Fuel Jump in Homelessness

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/us/homelessness-hit-record-level-in-2024.html

Migrants and End of Covid Restrictions Fuel Jump in Homelessness
The number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. topped 770,000, an increase of more than 18 percent over last year.
By Jason DeParle
Dec. 27, 2024

Homelessness soared to the highest level on record this year, driven by forces that included high rents, stagnant wages and a surge in migrants seeking asylum, the federal government reported on Friday.

The report, released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, showed that homelessness rose by a third in the past two years, after declining modestly over the previous decade.

The report found that veterans were the lone group to see a decline in homelessness last year. That continues a long-term trend driven by bipartisan support for housing and services for the politically popular group, a collaboration at odds with the rancor of the broader homelessness debate. The number of homeless veterans fell by 8 percent last year.

Dennis Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has long advised the government on homelessness data, said that about three-quarters of the increase in homelessness occurred in the four states hit hardest by asylum seekers — New York, Illinois, Colorado and Massachusetts — along with Hawaii, where wildfires in Maui fueled mass displacement. Absent migration and natural disasters, he said, homelessness would likely have risen by single digits.

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[thatdemguy]

1. Great more fuel for the pugs.