Washington, D.C., May 29, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today released the 2025 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress (Part 1). This report outlines the results of nationwide Point in Time Counts, which took place in January of 2025 and enumerates the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night. It reveals that between 2024 and 2025, the nation experienced the first decrease in overall homelessness in nearly a decade.
Key Reductions
On a single night in 2025, at least 745,652 people experienced homelessness in the United States. This represents a 3.4 percent decrease between 2024 and 2025. The reduction was driven by an 11.3 percent decrease among families experiencing homelessness, a 7.9 percent reduction in homelessness among unaccompanied youth, a 2.9 percent decrease among people who are unsheltered, and a 1.2 percent decrease among homeless veterans.
Significant reductions also took place in key states, including California (-2.8 percent) and New York (-7.9 percent), the states with the largest homeless populations. Notable reductions were also observed in Illinois (-43.6 percent), Colorado (-10.8 percent), Maine (-10.7 percent), Alabama (-10.1 percent), and Minnesota (-8.8 percent), among other states.
“These reductions are a relief, but make no mistake that homelessness remains a crisis. Over the course of 2024, an estimated 17,500 people a week entered into homeless systems for the first time,” said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “HUD’s data proves that even with the unrelenting demand for assistance, the housing-focused programs and strategies at the heart of homelessness response can and do work when they are appropriately resourced.”
Areas of Concern
Despite the overall reduction, the 2025 number do point to concerning trends. These include increases among people with the greatest needs, including experiencing chronic homelessness (+2.1 percent), and homelessness among older adults (+6.8 percent for people aged 65 and older).
Additionally, the homelessness system continues to be direly underfunded. HUD data shows that homelessness programs have permanent housing units for just 9.5 percent of people in need. Yet, the system still increased the number of formerly unhoused people to pay rent in 2025, serving more than 642,000 people in permanent housing.
The data reveals that homelessness is still steeped in disparities; although African Americans make up 14.4 percent of the U.S. population, they represent nearly one-third (32.7 percent) of the homeless population. Additionally, HUD failed to include any analysis of gender disparities in homelessness in the 2025 report, despite major increases in homelessness among women and stark levels of disparity among gender expansive people in previous reports. Alliance experts stressed that the absence of this data will have impacts on the ability to best serve everyone in need.
A Troubling Policy Forecast
This year’s report arrives as the nation’s homeless response systems are facing numerous threats. Throughout President Trump’s second term, the administration has repeatedly sought to upend the strategies, programs, and resources that communities rely upon.
“So much of the progress reflected in the 2025 PIT Count is due to targeted housing and service resources that were available in 2024 to rehouse people, including the highly successful Emergency Housing Voucher program, and new funds to address rural and unsheltered homelessness,” said Oliva. “Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has largely deprioritized these tools and worked to dismantle the very systems that drove these reductions.”
The administration has called for increasingly aggressive law enforcement tactics against people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, as well as for the involuntary commitment of homeless people into detention camp-style facilities. Moreover, it has proposed cuts to permanent housing programs that would force at least 170,000 formerly homeless people back on the streets, and it has attempted to force communities to endorse its immigration and gender-based policies to qualify for federal homelessness funds. It has further sought to keep gender expansive people from accessing life-saving shelter and services. Cumulatively, this represents the most aggressively destructive and partisan approach to homelessness in the nation’s history.
“Homelessness is not partisan: when homelessness declines, we all win, no matter where you live or how you vote,” said Oliva. “We encourage President Trump to abandon his failed tactics, and we call on Congress to robustly fund the programs that drove these decreases as it plans for the FY2027 federal budget.”
About the National Alliance to End Homelessness
The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. As a leading voice on the issue of homelessness, the Alliance analyzes policy and develops pragmatic, cost-effective solutions; works collaboratively with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to build state and local capacity; and provides data and research to policymakers and elected officials in order to inform policy debates and educate the public and opinion leaders nationwide.
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