A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets. Per a report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.
Homelessness is a problem in states such as California and Washington, which has also increased in historically more affordable parts of the U.S. Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas have seen the largest growths in their unsheltered populations due to rising local housing costs. The American people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads due to inflation in 2021 and 2022 and a surging rental market across the U.S. outpaced worker salaries.
There are several factors that can cause homelessness, high rents and the expiration of pandemic relief last year contributed to the spike in housing insecurity, per researchers found. There has also been a rising trend of tech companies, and financial institutions laying off workers. “In the first years of the pandemic, renter protections, income supports, and housing assistance helped decrease a considerable rise in homelessness. These protections ended in 2022, at a time when rents were rising rapidly and increasing numbers of migrants were prohibited from working. Currently, the number of people experiencing homelessness jumped to 71,000 in just one year,” according to a recent report from the United States Census.