Seventeen U.S. cities had over 5,000 homeless people in 2024

In 2024, seventeen urban or suburban continuums identified at least 5,000 homeless individuals each.

Numbers aside, people experience homelessness differently in each location: 30% of LA’s homeless population was sheltered either in an emergency shelter, transitional housing, or a safe haven program, compared to 97% of New York’s unhoused.

California had the six major-city continuums with the highest proportions of unsheltered homeless people, all with more than 60%: Long Beach, San Jose/Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Oakland/Berkeley, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Boston, New York City, Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Chicago had the highest proportions of sheltered homeless people, each over 90%. Annual homelessness counts occur during January, so cities in colder climates tend to have higher proportions of sheltered people.

How have homelessness counts changed in recent years? 

HUD estimates that the number of people experiencing homelessness increased 32% from 2022 to 2024. The 653,104 people who were unhoused in 2023 were the most in any year since point-in-time counts began in 2007; then in 2024, that figure rose another 18%. 

The number of unhoused people living in shelters also increased from 2022 to 2024, by 43%. Although fewer people stayed in shelters from 2020 to 2022, likely due to reduced capacity during the pandemic, many of those shelters had returned to full capacity by 2023. In January 2024, 64% of homeless Americans lived in shelters. 

Despite these shifts, the list of cities with the highest numbers of homeless people has largely remained consistent with pre-pandemic levels. 

See the data tab for figures on 70 different U.S. cities.