Report: Homelessness declined by 17% during the pandemic; family homelessness went down by a quarter

From mask mandates to shuttered shelters, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted every aspect of American society. Unhoused people were among those impacted the most. The latest annual report on homelessness published last month by the Department of Housing and Urban Development—covering the first full year during the pandemic in 2021—describes that impact in detail.

The findings highlight how investments in housing protection and resources kept people off the streets. Overall, homelessness decreased by 17% compared to 2019. Family homelessness went down by 25%.

“Congress provided never-before-seen resources and protections to keep millions of renters stably housed during the pandemic, and the success of these protections is shown by the decrease in homelessness over that same period,” said Diane Yentel, CEO and president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition in a statement about the findings. 

The first of the two-part homelessness assessment was released in January 2022 and estimated that 1,214,000 people lived in a shelter between Oct. 1, 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021. A number of things impacted the decrease. First, the CARES Act made available $4 billion to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within shelters and among homeless people. Coupled with a national moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent, $46.55 billion in emergency rental assistance was invested to keep people in their homes.

“These and other unprecedented pandemic-era resources helped stave off a catastrophic increase in evictions and, in the worst cases, homelessness,” a statement from the National Low Income Housing Coalition says.

The funding was badly needed, as shelters across the country reduced capacity to accomidate social distancing requirements. But with so many people staying in their homes, rental unit turnover was reduced, meaning there wasn’t much housing available for those who needed it, according to the report. 

Two-thirds of those in shelters were individual adults (816,000 people) and 31% were families with children (381,000 people). Another 92,000 were unaccompanied youth, and 82,000 were veterans. Sixty-eight percent of adults living in homelessness were men, and 31% were women. About 1% identified as transgender or a different gender.

Minorities were overepresented. Thirty-nine percent identified as Black, for example, even though Black householdes account for 13% of the total U.S. population. 

“Homelessness reflects systemic failures resulting from deep poverty, systemic inequities, a lack of affordable housing options, and structural racism that exist across our systems. BIPOC populations are overrepresented among the U.S. poverty population, setting up this disproportionate share of people experiencing homelessness,” the report says. “Families with a parent identifying as Black or African American were particularly overrepresented among the sheltered population, comprising 50 percent of the sheltered family population.”

With many of the pandemic-era housing protections expiring, Yentel called on the federal government to enact lasting measures to reduce homelessness.

“Just as those protections expired and resources were depleted, renters with the lowest incomes reentered a brutal housing market, with skyrocketing rents and increased costs for food, gas, and other necessities. Now, renters with the lowest incomes are struggling more than ever, eviction filings have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, and, as a result, homelessness is increasing in many communities. Absent continued significant action from Congress, the affordable housing and homelessness crises in this country will only continue to worsen,” she said.