WASHINGTON — There were 744,000
homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national
estimate in a decade.
A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were
chronically homeless, according to the report Wednesday by the National Alliance
to End Homelessness, an advocacy group.
A majority of the homeless were single adults, but about 41 percent were in
families, the report said.
The group compiled data collected by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development from service providers throughout the country. It is the first
national study on the number of homeless people since 1996. That study came up
with a wide range for America’s homeless population: between 444,000 and
842,000.
Counting people without permanent addresses, especially those living on the
street, is an inexact process. But the new study is expected to provide a
baseline to help measure progress on the issue.
“Having this data brings all of us another step closer to understanding the
scope and nature of homelessness in America, and establishing this baseline is
an extremely challenging task,” HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said.
“Understanding homelessness is a necessary step to addressing it successfully.”
U.S. agency plans its own report
HUD is preparing to release its own report on homelessness in the coming weeks,
Jackson said. In the future, the department plans to issue annual reports on the
number of homeless people in the U.S.
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.Some cities and states have done their own counts of the homeless, providing a
mix of trends, said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End
Homelessness. For example, New York City and San Francisco have seen decreases,
while the number of homeless in Washington, D.C., has increased, Roman said.
“In the last 12 to 18 months, the homeless population has essentially exploded
in Philadelphia,” said Marsha Cohen, executive director of the Homeless Advocacy
Project, which provides free legal services to the homeless in Philadelphia. “We
are seeing big increases in singles and families, both on the street and
attempting to enter the homeless system.”
“It’s a whole influx of new people, and that’s the really scary part,” Cohen
said.
In Columbus, Ohio, workers are scrambling to help an increasing number of people
living under bridges and in wooded encampments near rivers and streams, said
Barbara Poppe, executive director of the Community Shelter Board.
..“We’re very concerned about the health and well being of those people being
out in the elements,” Poppe said. “We had an encampment set on fire, and we had
a woman struck by a train.”
Calif., N.Y. lead nation
California was the state with most homeless people in 2005, about 170,000,
followed by New York, Florida, Texas and Georgia, according to the report.
Nevada had the highest share of its population homeless, about 0.68 percent. It
was followed by Rhode Island, Colorado, California and Hawaii.
“The driver in homelessness is the affordable housing crisis,” Roman said. “If
we don’t do something to address the crisis in affordable housing we are not
going to solve homelessness.”
She said many of the chronically homeless have mental health and substance abuse
problems. Others, she said, simply cannot afford housing.