The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress.
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The report found 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022. COVID-19 and its economic impacts could have led to significant increases in homelessness, however investments, partnerships and government agency outreach resulted in only a .3% increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness from 2020 to 2022.
The Biden-Harris Administration intends to not only stop but reverse the post-2016 trend of rising homelessness and reduce it 25% by 2025, as stated in All In, The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, which was released by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Compared with 2020, homelessness among people in shelters declined by 1.6%, while homelessness among people in unsheltered settings increased by 3.4%.
The rate of overall homelessness due in large part to a robust federal response that prevented evictions through Emergency Rental Assistance distributed to more than three million households, expanded resources for vulnerable families through the Child Tax Credit and provided other financial transfers through stimulus.
Homelessness among certain sub-populations decreased. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness decreased by 11%, contributing to a 55% decrease since 2010.
Between 2020 and 2022, the number of families with children experiencing homelessness declined by 6% between 2020 and 2022, marking a total decline of 36% since 2010.
The number of people under the age of 25 who experienced homelessness on their own as “unaccompanied youth†also declined by 12%.
All In was built from the ground up and shaped by public input from more than 500 people who have experienced homelessness as well as leaders, providers, advocates, developers, and other partners from more than 600 communities, tribes, and territories.
The plan is based on more than 1,500 online comments and more than 80 listening sessions that told USICH the federal government needs to:
Urgently address the basic needs of people in crisis;
Expand the supply of and access to affordable housing and high-quality support;
Build better systems to prevent people from losing their home in the first place;
Collaborate across sectors, systems, and jurisdictions;
Rely on data and evidence that show what works;
Include people who have experienced homelessness in the policymaking process to dismantle systems that create disparities. ■