How Many Homeless in America

How Many Homeless in America is difficult to be certain. Different regions will have different views on how big of an issue homelessness really is. There is a lot of disparity of how many homeless in America between different cities and states.

Someone living in Los Angeles is going to be exposed to a lot more homeless people than someone living on a farm in the middle of Kansas. In this article we will go over how many homeless there are in America, what areas have the highest rates of homelessness, and where there is the least homeless in America.

The most straightforward answer to a search for “How Many Homeless in America” is that there were a little more than 580,000 homeless in America according to a HUD Annual Report in 2020. That number is about a 2.2% increase from the previous year. 

The overwhelming majority of homeless in America is concentrated in cities and major metropolitan areas. Some of the biggest cities when it comes to homelessness include Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, and Seattle. New York City actually has the most homeless people in a single city with almost 80,000 people. New York does have a lot of shelters that people are able to stay in, but that cannot account for everyone

How Many Homeless in America can be viewed by just several major states

Map of US showing each state and the number of homeless living in each state

When it comes to the states with the most homeless people, California is the leader with more than 27% of all the homeless in America. New York follows with only about 15%, and the next highest is basically a tie between Texas and Florida with about 5%. What is really concerning is how those numbers have changed over time. Back in 2010, when figuring how many homeless in America, California accounted for less than 20%, New York only about 10% and Florida was close to 10% as well. In those 10 years though, New York and California have had growing numbers and an increasing percentage of the total homeless population most years. Meanwhile Florida has just about cut their homeless population in half. In fact, the majority of the states saw decreases in how many homeless over the past decade, with only California, New York, and a few others seeing significant increases. 

The places with the least homeless in America are generally rural areas. For one, rural areas don’t have as much of a population as urban areas. States like Wyoming have almost no homeless people, only about 600 in 2020. The population of Wyoming though is only about 576,000 people. That means there are more homeless people in all of America than there are people living in the single state of Wyoming. This is a common trend that we see in other states like North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia. None of those states have big cities, and they have relatively small populations. 

How many homeless in America is a search with everchanging answers, but the biggest parts are that California and New York have the most homeless people by far, and most homelessness is concentrated around cities.

For more information and statistics on homelessness by state, use this link to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.


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