How many homeless people live in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas? That’s a tricky question to answer.
Continuums of Care (CoCs) don’t always align with city or county boundaries, and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget) tend to include the areas that surround cities, such as suburbs or other cities. So, to better answer this question, we created an interactive map, using metro area boundaries and CoC-level point-in-time count data from 2015.
If you take a look around, you will see that our map shows estimates of the size of the homeless population and subpopulations in the nation’s 25 largest metro areas. These estimates, as well as the rates of homelessness, give insight into how the most populated areas in the country are doing in to end homelessness.
This is just one data set we are excited to share and a good precursor to our annual State of Homelessness in America report. This year it’s slated for a March release so stay tuned to our blog, the Alliance Online News and our website!
