Page 8 - LTHC Publics Catalog, Spring 2018 Update

HOMELESSNESS in the UNITED STATES

In other terms, chronic homelessness is defined as people who have a disability or serious illness or medical issues
and are repeatedly homeless or homeless for long periods of times. From 2014 to 2015, the total number of individ-
uals experiencing chronic homelessness fell by one percent nationally. The majority of these individuals were living in
unsheltered locations. In most states, changes in chronic homelessness were of modest magnitude.

Veteran homelessness decreased by 4.0 percent from 2014 to 2015 across the nation. The majority (66%) of veter-
ans experiencing homelessness were sheltered.

The number of unaccompanied children and youth found to be experiencing homelessness at the beginning of
2015 was 36,907. However, that is unlikely to be accurate as youth are thought not to be enumerated effectively with
point-in-time counts methods currently used in a larger number of CoCs.

From 2013 to 2014, the number of people in poverty decreased slightly to 1.2 percent. Thirty-two states and the
District of Columbia saw their poverty rates decrease while 18 states saw increases. Alaska saw the largest percent
increase in poverty and Mississippi had the largest percent decrease.

Overall, in 2015 in the United States there were
Of the 564,708 people experiencing 564,708 homeless people. However, 391,440 of
homelessness in the United States in 2015, those people were sheltered and 173,268 of those
nearly 70% were sheltered. people were unsheltered. On the positive side, a lot
of people do not realize that over half of the over-
all people who are homeless are sheltered. Since 2007 homelessness has decreased overall. The number of families
who are homeless has decreased by 4.6 percent from 2014.

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