Annual Homelessness Assessment (PIT Count)

HUD's Annual Homeless Assessment Report is built on a one-night census carried out by local Continuums of Care. The 2024 count is 771,480. That's up 18% from 653,104 a year earlier, and up 33% from the pre-pandemic 2020 reading. In absolute terms it is roughly the population of Seattle.

The single-night methodology is known to undercount. It misses people who couch-surf, who sleep in cars parked somewhere a surveyor won't walk, who cycle in and out of shelter across the year. The annualized count is substantially higher. The 771,480 count is the visible lower bound.

The drivers are not mysterious. Rents outpaced wages for the better part of a decade. Pandemic-era emergency rental assistance ran out. Medicaid CHIP Enrollment Monthly shows 15 million people losing coverage in the unwinding since April 2023 — a shock that tends to move through the system toward housing instability.

Homelessness is the terminal outcome of the distress cascade the American Distress Index tracks. The Buffer runs dry. The Safety Net fails. Falling Behind on rent becomes eviction. For 771,480 people, that cascade has already finished.