Homelessness in U.S. increases for first time in 7 years
By Eli Day, Mother Jones
For the first time in seven years, the number of people without a safe, regular place to sleep in America has grown. On any given night in 2017, nearly 554,000 people across the country were homeless, just under a 1 percent rise above 2016 levels.
The figure comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which publishes an annual report on the landscape of American homelessness. Overall, the number of people without a decent place to lay their heads at night is still down by more than 83,000 since 2010, a 13 percent drop.
Fueling this year’s rise in homelessness is California, which had 134,278 homeless people in 2017, more than any other state and 25 percent of the nation’s total. California saw the largest absolute increase in homelessness of any state between 2016 and 2017.
