The U.S. Cities With the Most Homeless People

More than 650,000 Americans were homeless in 2023, the latest number available from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. After a period of progress and decline, the U.S. homeless population increased slightly in 2019, 2020 and 2022 before taking a major step up in 2023, according to the report. It now stands at 653,104 individuals with 60 percent living in shelters. The total number is a 12 percent increase from 2022 and a 10 percent increase from the 15-year average between 2007 and 2022, marking a major shift in U.S. homeless populations. The count takes places in the first month(s) of every year, but is only published around a year later. While the number of sheltered individuals took a dip in 2021 due to Covid-19 precautions, U.S. shelters housed almost 400,000 in 2023. This marks an increase of almost 14 percent to the previous year, while the unsheltered homeless population rose by almost 10 percent in the same time period.

Around half of all unsheltered homeless people in the U.S. are located in California. This is despite the fact that some areas in the state have recently stopped counting unhoused homeless populations, as has Seattle. The rates of unsheltered homeless populations are also high in other states on the West Coast. Tent cities are common occurrences in these states as a result of the growing unsheltered homeless populations. This very visible symptom of homelessness has proven divisive, and while some cities have embraced designated areas for camping as a solution for unsheltered people, others have cracked down on encampments, for example Sacramento, San Jose and Oakland.

More than half of the U.S. homeless population is scattered across the country's 50 biggest cities and their surrounding areas. 24 percent of them live in just two cities - New York and Los Angeles. Despite its considerable homeless population, New York has a very low rate of unsheltered individuals: only 4.6 percent lived on the streets in early 2023, which is in part due to the two cities opposing climates. In Los Angeles, 73.3 percent of homeless people were listed as unsheltered at the same time.

The CoCs for New York and Los Angeles - so-called Continuums of Care or local planning bodies coordinating the response to homelessness - saw around 88,000 and 71,000 homeless people in the early 2023 count. Seattle/King County registered around 14,000 homeless people when just counting the sheltered homeless population - rank 3 nevertheless. Other CoCs in the U.S. experiencing a high level of homelessness are San Diego, Denver, San Jose and Santa Clara in California with around 10,000 homeless people counted each. Out of the 10 CoCs with the biggest homeless populations registered in 2023, five were located in California.