New Data on National Homelessness

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just released its Annual Homeless Assessment Report. According to HUD, the report is the first to "provide year-to-year trend information that explores
changes in the patterns of homelessness over time."  This year's report is interesting for another reason in that it is one of the first to begin to provide early indicators of the impact made by the current economic crisis. The whole report is worth reading, but here are a couple of points of particular interest:

• The report shows that nationally the number of homeless families living in suburban and rural areas increased by nearly 56 percent from 2007 to 2008. (We know, from other data, that Massachusetts family homelessness is at an all-time high.)
• Boston, however, was one of a handful of cities that actually saw sizable declines in the number of Chronically homeless individuals [New York City (-26 percent); Phoenix (-20 percent); Philadelphia (-8 percent); and Boston (-7 percent).]

In the coming months you will be hearing more about United Way's investments in Housing First, an effort to end homelessness in Massachusetts and provide more families with safe, permanent homes.  Until then, you can learn more about our work to end homelessness here.