Published by REALTOR.com | December 19, 2022
Homelessness rose this year as rents and home prices spiked across the country.
In January 2022, nearly 582,500 people experienced homelessness, according to a recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report. That figure is a slight increase—about 0.3%—from 2020. However, homelessness fell 10% over the past 15 years.
The homeless counts were performed in late January, February, and early March. The numbers were compared with 2020 because many places didn’t hold full counts during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
“We’re not keeping up with folks who are becoming homeless. We’re generating more homelessness more rapidly than we’re housing people because too many people can’t afford housing.”
—Marybeth Shinn, a professor who specializes in homelessness at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Indeed, rents have shot up by double digits across the country over the past year. The increase slowed to just 4.7% year over year in October, according to the most recent Realtor.com® data.
Virtually no part of the country is affordable for a minimum-wage, full-time worker to pay for a two-bedroom apartment on wages alone, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
“We’re likely to see a big jump in homelessness as rents have gone up if we don’t do more to make housing affordable,” says Shinn.
