On a single night in January 2025, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that 745,652 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States, including 266,320 in unsheltered locations, about 3% fewer overall than in 2024. Homelessness has increased in recent years, in large part due to an increasingly severe housing shortage and rising home prices in the United States. Most homeless people lived in California, New York, Florida, and Washington in 2022, according to the annual Homeless Assessment Report. The majority of homeless people in the United States have been homeless for less than one year; two surveys by YouGov in 2022 and 2023 found that just under 20 percent of Americans reported having ever been homeless.

The main contributor to homelessness is a lack of housing supply and rising home values. Interpersonal and individual factors, such as mental illness and addiction, also play a role in explaining homelessness. However, mental illness and addiction play a weaker role than structural socio-economic factors, as West Coast cities such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have homelessness rates five times that of areas with much lower housing costs like Arkansas, West Virginia, and Detroit, even though the latter locations have high burdens of opioid addiction and poverty.

Historically, homelessness emerged as a national issue in the 1870s. Early homeless people lived in emerging urban cities, such as New York City. Into the 20th century, the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a substantial rise in homelessness. In 1990, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the homeless population to be of 228,621, or 0.09% of the 248,709,873 enumerated in the 1990 U.S. census, which homelessness advocates criticized as an undercount. In the 21st century, the Great Recession of the late 2000s and the resulting economic stagnation and downturn have been major driving factors and contributors to rising homelessness rates. Increases in homelessness broke records in 2022 and in 2023. In 2023, record levels of homelessness have been declared in Los Angeles and New York City, and other cities around the country have reported increased levels of homelessness, with the main drivers being a shortage of affordable housing and the increased cost of living. In 2024, homelessness increased by a record 18%.

Health complications are a significant concern for homeless people, as lack of residence inhibits hygiene and access to healthy food, and exposes individuals to both cold and heat stress, violence, and traffic deaths. This contributes to increased mortality rates. In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that anti-camping laws do not constitute a cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment even when no shelter is available, allowing cities to jail and fine homeless people for sleeping and camping outside.

Many Americans who cannot afford normal housing live in their cars or recreational vehicles (RVs). About a million people in the USA live full-time in RVs, according to the RV Industry Association, some of them just can’t afford normal housing, but many do it by choice.

History

Pre-colonial and colonial periods

Following the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in England, constables were authorized under 1383 English Poor Laws to collar vagabonds and force them to show support. If they could not, the penalty was gaol.

Vagabonds could be sentenced to the stocks for three days and nights. In 1530, whipping was added. The presumption was that vagabonds were unlicensed beggars. In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law, namely two years' servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second.

Large numbers of vagabonds were among the convicts transported to the American colonies in the 18th century. Many became homeless.Convict Voyages (1): Overview , by Anthony Vaver, Early American Crime, January 6, 2009 African American homelessness According to historian Roberta Ann Johnson, American slavery in the Southern colonies led to homelessness for free Blacks. Runaway slaves represented an early example of American homelessness. Native Americans at times provided a safe haven for runaway slaves. During the Civil War (1861–1865), many slaves escaped and became homeless. The Union Army provided protection and some housing aid and employment to these refugees. During the Reconstruction era after the war, large-scale operations by Freedmen's Bureau provided employment for many homeless until it closed in 1872. Most former slaves became tenant farmers, sharecroppers, or day laborers on cotton or tobacco farms.

In the Great Migration after 1914, many Southern Blacks moved to large Northern cities, and some became homeless in segregated neighborhoods. Large-scale unemployment in the Great Depression of the 1930s disproportionately affected Black Americans. They received federal aid in proportion to their numbers, but it was not proportionate to their needs. The New Deal operated a major farm program but it helped owners more than tenants, many of whom became homeless. After 1965, urban renewal reduced the number of affordable housing units available to Blacks, forcing them to double up in housing units in the remaining slum areas.

Urbanization in the late 19th century

Homelessness emerged as a national issue in the 1870s. There are no national figures documenting homeless people's demography at this time. Jacob Riis wrote about, documented, and photographed the poor and destitute, although not specifically homeless people, in New York City tenements in the late 19th century. His book, How the Other Half Lives, published in 1890, raised public awareness of living conditions in the slums, causing some changes in building codes and some social conditions.

The growing movement toward social concern sparked the development of rescue missions, such as America's first rescue mission, the New York City Rescue Mission, founded in 1872 by Jerry and Maria McAuley. In smaller towns, there were hobos, who temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations. Especially following the American Civil War, a large number of homeless men formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over America.Depastino, Todd, "Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America", Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2003. . (Interview with Todd Depastino )

By the late 19th century, many American towns and cities had significant numbers of homeless people.Homelessness in America; A non-economic problem! retrieved 1 October 2023 In New York City, for example, there was an area known as "the Bowery". Rescue missions offering "soup, soap, and salvation", a phrase introduced by The Salvation Army,Salvation Army, "History of The Salvation Army Social Services of Greater New York" sprang up along the Bowery thoroughfare, including the oldest one, The Bowery Mission. The mission was founded in 1879 by the Rev. and Mrs. A.G. Ruliffson.

20th century

1930s: The Great Depression

The Great Depression of 1929-1939 caused a devastating epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness for one to two million people at any one time, with a great deal of turnover. As local charities and cities were overwhelmed, the homeless created self-governed shantytowns known as "Hoovervilles." Built from scrap materials in vacant lots near railroad yards, these poverty-stricken settlements housed hundreds or even thousands of displaced young men, with some women and children. Residents lived in makeshift shacks and begged for food or went to soup kitchens run by charities and churches. Local authorities did not officially recognize these Hoovervilles, but they were tolerated out of necessity. By early 1933 about 1.5 million people were lacking shelter. Because state laws denied aid to non-residents, the New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt created the "Federal Transient Program" (FTP) in May 1933 as part of the new Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), run by Harry Hopkins. FTP covered 100% of the local government costs for helping "transients" (those living in a state for less than a year). At its peak, the FTP operated over 600 facilities, providing food, medical care, housing and some jobs to about 1 million people. Most of those served were young, white, native-born working-class men, though women and African Americans were also present. By 1935, the federal government began phasing out direct relief like the FTP in favor of the "Second New Deal". Several factors drove this change. The FTP was so successful at clearing the streets that public urgency regarding homelessness faded. Officials like Harry Hopkins feared direct relief created "dependency" and pulled men away from traditional roles as family breadwinners. The new policy shifted toward public works run by the Works Progress Administration. (WPA) and long-term social safety nets especially Social Security. Shutting down the FTP in 1935 caused a resurgence of "hobo" life and left Dust Bowl migrants—like those famously depicted in the 1939 novel and film The Grapes of Wrath—with little federal support. Finally, the homelessness crisis ended between 1939 and 1941, when the booming World War II defense industries hired as many people as fast as possible.Todd DePastino, "Great Depression" in Encyclopedia of homelessness ed. by David Levinson, (Sage, 2004) vol 1. pp. 183–186.Todd DePastino, Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America (U of Chicago Press, 2003) pp.201–220.George E. Outland, “The Federal Transient Program for Boys in Southern California.” Social Forces 14#3 1936, pp. 427–32. online

1960s and 1970s

A 1960 survey by Temple University of Philadelphia's poor neighborhoods found that 75 percent of the homeless were over 45 years old, and 87 percent were white."The men on skid row: A study of Philadelphia's homeless man population", Department of Psychiatry, Temple University School of Medicine, November 1960.

The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was a pre-disposing factor in setting the stage for homelessness in the United States. Long term psychiatric patients were released from state hospitals into single-room occupancies and sent to community health centers for treatment and follow-up. Never adequately funded, the community mental health system struggled to meet patient needs"Kennedy's vision for mental health never realized", USA Today, October 20, 2013. Retrieved September 18, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/20/kennedys-vision-mental-health/3100001/ and many of the "deinstitutionalized" wound up living on the streets, with no sustainable support system. In the United States, during the late 1970s, the deinstitutionalization of patients from state psychiatric hospitals was a precipitating factor which seeded the population of people that are homeless, especially in urban areas such as New York City.

1980s and 1990s

The number of homeless people grew in the 1980s, nearly doubling from 1984 to 1987. According to Don Mitchell, this was in part due to the neoliberal reforms of the Reagan presidency, as housing and social service cuts increased and also the economy suffered a recession early in the decade. In 1984, the Federal government determined that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Americans were homeless.Joint Hearing op. cit., May 1984, p. 32 IUD Office for Policy Development and Research, A Report to the Secretary on the Homeless and Emergency Shelters, May 1, 1986. There were some U.S. federal initiatives that aimed to help, end and prevent homelessness. However, there were no designated homeless-related programs in the Office of Management and Budget. Tent cities, which had largely vanished during the post-war period, began to re-emerge during this time.