Roughly 771,000 Americans were homeless in 2024, more than any other year on record and an 18% increase from 2023. A national housing shortage is by far the biggest culprit, but the end of pandemic rental assistance, an increase in migration and natural disasters that displaced people also contributed to the surge.
About 35% of homeless Americans sleep outdoors rather than in shelters or temporary housing, a higher proportion than in most other countries tracked by the OECD. Rough sleepers are more likely than their sheltered peers to be homeless for long stretches of time. Many struggle openly with drug addiction and mental-health problems.
In June 2024 the Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass v Johnson that punishing homeless people for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. At least 163 municipalities have passed camping restrictions since then, according to the National Homelessness Law Centre. Almost a third of those bans are in California, which has both more homeless people than any other state and the highest proportion of rough sleepers.
Violators of Fresno's camping ban, enacted in September 2024, can face up to $1,000 in fines or one year in jail; in lieu of punishment they can accept a referral to a shelter or treatment programme.
Frustration with the status quo has scrambled the politics of homelessness. Republicans and Democrats increasingly favour clearing encampments. The Cicero Institute, a conservative think-tank in Austin, Texas, founded by Joe Lonsdale, a tech billionaire, pushes state camping bans, arguing it is more compassionate to coerce homeless people to accept housing or treatment than to allow them to suffer on the streets. Many on the left were once wary of clearing encampments for fear of traumatising residents; that argument is now little-heard.
Los Angeles has cleared encampments without the threat of citation or jail and saw the number of rough sleepers drop by 10% between 2023 and 2024, though its unsheltered population, adjusted for the city's size, remains among the highest in the country.
Donald Trump's 2025 budget request proposed cutting funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by 44%, jeopardising rental-assistance programmes that help keep poor Americans housed.
Life is a series of rude awakenings.