jollibet The Growth in Homelessness Is an American Moral Failure

Homelessness in America has risen to record levels, according to a new report released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It’s a worrying sign that the fragile social safety net that was erected during the pandemic has lapsed, and the country’s most vulnerable are worse off for it.

The agency’s annual count of people experiencing homelessness, taken over the course of a single night in January 2024, indicates an 18 percent increase in homelessness from the year before. Last year, 771,480 people — about 23 of every 10,000 — were experiencing homelessness, the highest number ever recorded.

A closer look at the report shows that the crisis greatly affects families with children, who had the largest increase in homelessness of any category in the report. Nearly 150,000 children were considered homeless on the night of the count.

There’s no single reason these numbers swelled so much last year. By January 2024, Covid-era eviction moratoriums and other programs, like rapid rehousing and the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, had come to an end. Backlogged evictions were resolved in court just as high inflation rates and exorbitant rents plagued rental markets. Natural disasters destroyed housing in several municipalities, leaving thousands without shelter. A growing number of asylum seekers sought temporary shelter in major cities.

The government’s report illustrates how homelessness is a crisis born of several compounded crises, a symptom of the varied ways our country is failing the most vulnerable.

Yet politicians and leaders have largely chosen to treat people without housing punitively. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case called City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that outlawing sleeping outside is not “cruel and unusual punishment.” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was among the first to make use of the ruling, swiftly “sweeping” at least 140 homeless encampments across his state. More than two dozen California cities and counties have since passed or proposed ordinances that bring harsher punishment to people who sleep outside.

Overall, violent crime fell 3 percent and property crime fell 2.6 percent in 2023, with burglaries down 7.6 percent and larceny down 4.4 percent. Car thefts, though, continue to be an exception, rising more than 12 percent from the year before.

Throughout the government’s most recent homelessness assessment report, its authors wrote that “comparisons to pandemic years should be made with caution.” But it’s hard not to compare: 2020 and 2021 were among the lowest counts of homelessness recorded in our country’s history. The safety nets put in place to prevent a family from being evicted if they had no place to go, to help a child on the brink of homelessness with monthly stipends, actually worked.

It isn’t just a travesty that our leaders have decided these programs aren’t a continued priority. It’s unconscionable. Rather than look upon people experiencing homelessness as outsiders, as a problem to be swept awayjollibet, American leaders — and the American people — must see them for who they are: a part of us.