LOCALIZE IT: US homelessness tally stable through pandemic
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A national tally of homelessness released Monday finds that the total number of unhoused people across the U.S. was about the same earlier this year as it was in 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation hard.
The result represents a balancing of conflicting forces sparked by the pandemic: job losses and rising rents along with eviction protections and tax breaks.
The stories in communities varied. Experts say housing prices are the driving force, though the government response is also a major factor.
The counts dropped significantly in cities including Boston, Chicago, Houston and New York; rose in Phoenix, Seattle and Sacramento. In Los Angeles, which has overtaken New York as the city with the largest homeless population, the number increased, but more slowly than it had in recent years.
As it released the latest numbers on Monday, President Joe Biden's administration also announced a goal of reducing homelessness by 25% by 2025 and strategies intended to help. Find AP's story here.
RESOURCES
— The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its report on 2022 estimates of homelessness. The site includes links to downloadable spreadsheets tracking the data from 2007 through 2022. The data is available by continuum of care, or CoC, the cities, counties, or groups of cities and counties that join together to provide homeless services and track the numbers. There are also spreadsheets on housing inventory counts by continuum and state and veteran homelessness counts since 2011 by continuum and state.
Both The Associated Press and the federal reports have focused on comparing 2022 data with the tallies gathered in 2020 rather than 2021. Full surveys were not conducted most places in 2021 because of the pandemic.
— AP/Report for America data journalist Kavish Harjai analyzed the results of selected continuums of care that had released local reports by late September. That includes a deeper explanation about the data and its limitations and lists of areas where homeless counts have risen and fallen. Members can use the new federal numbers to do similar analyses for their communities.
— The local continuums of care, which are government agencies in many places, also have experts on local homelessness.
— Especially in larger cities, there are nongovernmental groups that advocate for and provide services to people experiencing homelessness.
QUESTIONS/REPORTING TIPS
— Have the homelessness numbers changed in your area? If so, what economic forces and/or government actions are believed to be driving the change? Are there methodology changes that could impact the local data?
— Do the experiences of people experiencing homelessness jibe with the explanations of local officials and experts?
— How are local policies changing?
— Is there political fallout from consideration of how to handle homelessness?
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Localize It is an occasional feature produced by The Associated Press for its customers’ use. Questions can be directed to Katie Oyan at koyan@ap.org.