A record number of people in the Greater Cincinnati area are experiencing homelessness and more are living completely unsheltered, according to a press release from organizations in the region.
The release was issued by Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition and Shelterhouse — all organizations and non-profits that seek to provide services, shelter and food in Cincinnati.
The organizations who penned the press release sent out Monday compared numbers of people experiencing homelessness in 2023 to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic — but that year was not far off from Cincinnati city government’s battles with tent cities and camps , which included a Hamilton County judge’s countywide ban against homeless people sleeping outside.
That ban was partially overturned in December 2018 after an appeals court overruled the initial ban; the court ruled the judge had a right to ban camps on public property, but couldn’t stop private property owners from hosting them as one Over-the-Rhine park had attempted to do.