The latest report on homelessness in the United States from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development found that 653,104 Americans were homeless in 2023. The level climbed for the 6th year.
The numbers increased from 2019 to 2020, and finally, from 2022 to 2023, they grew by 12%. It represented in one year, an average increase of 10% for the years from 2007 to 2022 combined.
The COVID lockdowns and the cost of living (inflationary crisis) are the root causes of the increase.
When the limit on the number of people who could be in a shelter was removed, many ended up there.
Homelessness is broken down into unhoused and people living in shelters.
People living in shelters rose exponentially. In 2023, sheltered populations rose by almost 14 percent, while unhoused populations rose by less than 10 percent.
Before 2023, the number of homeless people in a single night in January was always below Great Recession levels. It reached its highest number since 2007. The 2023 number passed 2007 by 1%. There are no signs it will get better.
The report also cited the weak mental health structure in the United States. Many or most of the unhoused homeless are drug-addicted and/or mentally ill. There is little help for them.
We donโt know how massive illegal immigration figures into this, but it must be in some way. Some reports say illegal foreigners are getting housing over the homeless Americans, and it is costing hundreds of billions of dollars in many locales.
We send a lot of money to foreign countries, but we have more than 653,000 homeless whom we know about. The spending on foreign nations is out of control. There are too many hands in that pot doling out our tax dollars.
This is only one symptom of a divided nation. Divided nations always fall eventually.
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