On a single night one year ago, there were 326,126 people experiencing homelessness in emergency shelters, transitional housing, or other temporary settings in the United States, according to the “2021 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress.”
The count is an 8% decrease from 2020, reports the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the report. However, a possible reason for the steep drop is that some shelters reduced the number of beds in their facilities to try to thwart the risk of exposure to COVID-19. People also may have been reluctant to seek shelter beds because of the health risk.
In response to the pandemic, HUD waived the requirement for communities to conduct a count of unsheltered homelessness in 2021. As a result, the new report focuses on national estimates of sheltered homelessness.
“The findings of the 2021 AHAR Part 1 report suggest that federal COVID-19 relief had positive impacts on sheltered homelessness,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “Yet, we know that homelessness in America remains an urgent crisis. As long as people in this nation continue to lack affordable, secure housing, our work to put Housing First is not done. By continuing to leverage American Rescue Plan resources and our federal House America initiative, the administration will further accelerate progress toward our shared goal of ending the homelessness crisis.”
Findings from the 2021 point-in-time count include:
· The number of sheltered people in families with children declined considerably between 2020 and 2021, while the number of sheltered individuals remained relatively flat. In 2021, just over 131,000 people in families with children were experiencing sheltered homelessness, a decline of 15% since 2020. This was a much larger change than in the number of sheltered individuals, which dropped by only 2%, to 236,500 people in 2021;
· The share of emergency shelter beds for people experiencing sheltered homelessness located in non-congregate settings increased by 134%. In response to the pandemic, many communities focused their resources on shelter beds located in hotels, motels, or other settings that are not facility-based;
· Between 2020 and 2021, the number of veterans experiencing sheltered homelessness decreased by 10%. This represents the largest one-year decline since 2015 to 2016. In 2021, 19,750 veterans were experiencing sheltered homelessness, representing 8% of all sheltered adults experiencing homelessness in the United States. Veterans experiencing sheltered homelessness accounted for 11 out of every 10,000 veterans in the country;
· On a single night in 2021, 15,763 people younger than 25 experienced sheltered homelessness on their own as “unaccompanied youth.” This represents a decline of 9% between 2020 and 2021. While decreases in sheltered homelessness among unaccompanied youth were experienced across nearly all demographic characteristics, a few groups did experience increases. The number of people who were transgender increased by 29%, and the number of sheltered unaccompanied youth who were gender non-conforming increased by 26%. Though the number was relatively small, sheltered unaccompanied youth who were Native American experienced the largest percentage increase, at 21%; and
· The number of sheltered individuals with chronic patterns of homelessness increased by 20% between 2020 and 2021. This trend in the sheltered chronically homeless individual population runs counter to the decrease for all sheltered individuals. While the overall sheltered individual population has declined, the number of chronically homeless individuals staying in shelter programs has increased in recent years and continued to do so between 2020 and 2021.
The one-night counts are conducted during the last 10 days of January each year, with extensions approved on a case-by-case basis.
