U.S. Homelessness Falls More Than 6% in Largest Drop in Over a Decade, HUD Reports

Homelessness in the United States fell by more than 6 percent last year, the largest one-year drop in more than a decade, according to figures the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Saturday.

The annual count found roughly 49,000 fewer people without housing than the year before. It was the second straight year the count fell, after a smaller decline in 2024. HUD has not yet posted a detailed report behind the headline numbers.

Even with the drop, nearly 700,000 people were living in shelters or on the streets, a total still well above the level before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two different explanations for the drop

HUD Secretary Scott Turner credited the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “President Trump’s actions to secure the border, get criminal illegals off our streets, and restore safety to our communities drove a historic decrease in homelessness,” Turner said in a press release announcing the results.

A second analysis of the same count, commissioned by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, found a similar decline but gave different reasons for it. “It’s good news that more people are getting housed, and that the programs that are funded by Congress are working,” said Ann Oliva, the group’s chief executive.

The administration also pointed to its crackdown on homeless encampments, after the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that cities can ban people from sleeping and camping in public places. Oliva said the analysis her group commissioned showed that cities with such bans “actually did worse than the national average.”

Where the numbers moved

Four cities, New York, Chicago, Boston and Denver, drove about half of the decline, according to NPR. During the Biden administration, those cities saw a surge of asylum seekers who turned up at homeless shelters. Devon Kurtz, public safety policy director at the Cicero Institute, an administration ally on homelessness policy, said those four cities drove about half of the drop, as the shelter surge receded.

Homelessness among U.S. veterans fell by more than 7 percent last year and has dropped by nearly 60 percent since 2010, according to the alliance’s analysis. By contrast, the number of people who have been homeless for a long time rose slightly.

Oliva said the decline was broad and likely came from several factors at once, including softer rental markets in some places. Rents are still high, she said, but they are down from record peaks during the pandemic, and that could slow the flow of people losing housing.

The administration wants to move several billion dollars in homelessness spending toward short-term housing with required addiction and mental health treatment, a shift away from the longstanding policy of getting people into permanent housing first and offering treatment on a voluntary basis. That plan has been blocked by courts so far. HUD says the old approach failed and blames it for the pandemic-era rise in homelessness. Oliva said programs that house people without preconditions were a large part of the latest declines, especially among veterans.

Reporting based on coverage by NPR.