Subtopic Hub
Homelessness
TL;DR
On a single night in January 2025, 745,652 people in the United States had no home of their own, and 266,320 of them were sleeping outside. In this section, we look at solutions to homelessness and the people working every day to help restore dignity and a safe place to call home.
Quick Answers
How many people are homeless in the United States?
The federal count found 745,652 people homeless on a single night in January 2025, down 3 percent from the year before. Eighteen percent of them were children under 18, and 266,320 were unsheltered, meaning on the street or somewhere not meant to be lived in.
What causes homelessness?
Mostly math, not character. The country is short roughly 7.3 million affordable rental homes, median rent rose 18% between 2020 and 2024, and wages haven't kept up. On budgets that tight, one bad year (a lost job, an illness, even a small rent hike) can cost a family everything.
What actually helps families stay housed?
Housing plus the things that make it a home. Nationally, about half of families return to homelessness within a year of being housed. But when the house is furnished and feels like theirs, as one nonprofit in our films does, nearly 99% are still home a year later.
Editor's Note
Home is more than a place to sleep. It is a place where you feel safe, a place you want to return to.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans do not have a home, and the problem is growing fastest among families with children. There are many reasons for the homelessness crisis, including too few affordable homes, rising rents, and wages that have not kept pace. One of our films follows a family pushed over the edge by a $25 rent increase, leaving everything they owned on the curb.
We want to share stories that show a way back, so people can have more than a roof over their heads. They can have a home.
Featured OGSP Story
Home
Getting a family off the street only works if they stay housed. Humble Design furnishes their empty spaces with care and makes it a home, where the national return-to-homelessness rate hovers near 50%, nearly all of their families are still home a year later.
Watch NowRelated Changemakers
Key Takeaways
- Some 93 percent of the 230,366 people in homeless families with children counted in January 2025 were sheltered.
- The number of people in homeless families with children dropped by 29,107 over the year, an 11 percent fall, while the national count fell 3 percent.
- Nearly 156,000 people, one in every three homeless individuals, reported chronic patterns of homelessness.
- Homelessness among veterans is 56 percent lower than in 2009, but between 2024 and 2025 it fell by only about 390 veterans, the smallest decline of any group.