The Biden administration chose the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s Day to release the nation’s most recent census of homeless people, a traditional day to try to bury bad news.
It won’t work.
Americans see the skyrocketing number of people living on streets and in parks, especially here in Washington, which has more homeless residents than almost any other state.
The report issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is shocking. It tallied homeless residents based on the January 2024 Point-in-Time count. Homelessness across the country increased 18% year over year to 771,480. That came after a 12% increase the previous year.
Washington had the third-most homeless residents of any state — 31,554 of them — despite being the 13th most populous. Only California and New York had more.
Meanwhile more-populated, warmer states like Texas and Florida had fewer. Washington’s population of chronically homeless grew by more than half in just one year, reaching nearly 12,000. That is almost four times as many people as were chronically homeless in 2007.