New study sheds light on homelessness in America

HUD’s assessment also measures homelessness over time, allowing researchers to expand their body of knowledge beyond the more limited point-in-time estimates of the past.

“This … study is a huge leap forward in our understanding of not only how many people are homeless, but also what their needs are,” said HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson in a news release. “We’ve got to remember that behind these numbers are people – individuals and families who are struggling to survive. This report is a powerful tool to help all of us at the federal, state and local level design more effective responses to homelessness.”

Since 2001, HUD has awarded more than $9 billion to support thousands of local housing and service programs throughout the nation and is seeking a record $1.6 billion through the Department’s Continuum of Care grant programs for fiscal 2008.

Gathering the data

HUD’s assessment is based on two sources of data. The first is a national sample of 80 randomly chosen geographically diverse communities that have implemented homeless management information systems, a modern data collection method that can accurately count how many persons use emergency shelters and transitional housing over time. The HMIS data in this report focus on the number of sheltered homeless persons from February to April 2005. Based on that information, HUD found 704,000 persons used emergency shelters or transitional housing between February and April 2005. HUD’s three-month sample of HMIS data found the following characteristics of the sheltered homeless population:

• 65 percent of the adult population is men

• 41 percent is 31 to 50 years old

• 66 percent are individuals and 34 percent is persons in families with children

• 75 percent is in central cities and 25 percent is in suburban and rural areas HUD also collected one-night counts of homeless persons, both at the shelter level and on the streets in more than 3,800 cities and counties. It found an estimated 754,000 persons were in shelters and on the streets during one night in January 2005. HUD’s point-in-time estimate is very similar to an analysis of the same data conducted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

“Understanding homelessness is a necessary step to ending it, especially for those persons living with a chronic condition such as mental illness, an addiction or a physical disability,” Jackson said. [[In-content Ad]]