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People that are suffering from poverty are in a tough situation on trying to provide for them and there families. There are many great organizations that provide homeless people with many resources. They provide food and shelter.

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Alleviating poverty is one of the core missions of the social work profession, and one of the major difficulties that often goes along with poverty is hunger. Families who lose financial stability often have a hard time getting enough to eat, and the process for getting food stamps or other government assistance can be arduous. Food banks play a huge part in making sure that families affected by poverty, especially those with children, can get what they need. Any social worker with clients affected by poverty may need to help their clients get connected with local food banks and organizations that provide nutritional and monetary assistance. Additionally, many social workers are employed at, or collaborate with, groups that advocate on behalf of those in poverty to help them get food, shelter, and equitable legal treatment.

This is not a ranked list, but an acknowledgment of organizations that are doing good work, and a resource for social workers, or social work students, who want to make alleviating poverty and hunger a central mission in their social work careers.

Food Banks & Anti-Hunger Groups

These groups provide the much needed service of gathering food, often donated from community members and businesses, and distributing it among families in need. Many of these organizations also work to raise awareness of poverty and hunger in their communities and to inspire others to help raise people out of poverty.

Policy & The Law

Many organizations, from local and national poverty law centers to political activists, are working on diminishing poverty levels by trying to change the law and public policy to be more accommodating and offer more assistance to families and individuals in poverty.

Anti-Poverty Advocacy

Anti-Poverty advocates disseminate information and work with public and private organizations to decrease poverty systematically by increasing access to technology, housing, legal representation, food, and many other resources that are much more difficult to obtain for families affected by poverty.

Relevant Resources

From inexpensive housing providers to groups helping children in poverty get better educations, there are people working on alleviating both the symptoms and the causes of poverty from every angle, and social workers are a crucial part of these efforts.

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Great Organizations Confronting Poverty & Hunger

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Alleviating poverty is one of the core missions of the social work profession, and one of the major difficulties that often goes along with poverty is hunger. Families who lose financial stability often have a hard time getting enough to eat, and the process for getting food stamps or other government assistance can be arduous.

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Many people do not have a home and do not realize that they have a disease or are suffering from something that needs to be helped with. If you are pregnant and do not have a home you are not just putting your life in danger, but also the babies. There needs to be more communities to help out with these situations to cause less deaths around the world.

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Renee Delisle was one of over 3,500 homeless people in Santa Cruz when she found out she was pregnant. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported she was turned away from a shelter because they did not have space for her. While other homeless people slept in cars or under culverts, Renee ended up living in an abandoned elevator shaft until her water broke.

Jerome Murdough, 56, a homeless former Marine, was arrested for trespass in New York because he was found sleeping in a public housing stairwell on a cold night. The New York Times reported that one week later, Jerome died of hyperthermia in a jail cell heated to over 100 degrees.

Paula Corb and her two daughters lost their home and have lived in their minivan for four years. They did laundry in a church annex, went to the bathroom at gas stations, and did their studies under street lamps, according to America Tonight.

Fact 1: Over half a million people are homeless. On any given night, there are over 600,000 homeless people in the U.S., according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Most people are spending the night either in homeless shelters or in some sort of short-term transitional housing. Slightly more than a third are living in cars or under bridges or are in some other way living unsheltered.

Fact 2: One quarter of homeless people are children. HUD reports that on any given night, over 138,000 of the homeless in the U.S. are children under the age of 18. Thousands of these homeless children are unaccompanied, according to HUD. Another federal program, No Child Left Behind, defines "homeless children" more broadly and includes not just those living in shelters or transitional housing but those who are sharing the housing of other persons due to economic hardship; living in cars, parks, bus or train stations; or awaiting foster-care placement. Under this definition, the National Center for Homeless Education reported in September 2014 that local school districts reported there are over 1 million homeless children in public schools.

Fact 3: Tens of thousands of veterans are homeless. Over 57,000 veterans are homeless each night, according to HUD. Sixty percent of them are in shelters, the rest unsheltered. Nearly 5,000 are female.

Fact 4: Domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness among women. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), more than 90 percent of homeless women are victims of severe physical or sexual abuse, and escaping that abuse is a leading cause of their homelessness.

Fact 5: Many people are homeless because they cannot afford rent. The lack of affordable housing is a primary cause of homelessness, according to the NLCHP. HUD has seen its budget slashed by over 50 percent in recent decades, resulting in the loss of 10,000 units of subsidized low-income housing each and every year.

Fact 6: There are fewer places for poor people to rent than before. According to the NLCHP, one eighth of the nation's supply of low-income housing has been permanently lost since 2001. The U.S. needs at least 7 million more affordable apartments for low-income families, and as a result, millions of families spend more than half of their monthly income on rent.

Fact 7: In the last few years millions have lost their homes. Over 5 million homes have been foreclosed on since 2008; that's one out of every 10 homes with a mortgage. This has caused even more people to search for affordable rental property.

Fact 8: The government does not help as much as you think. There is enough public rental assistance to help about one out of every four extremely low-income households. Those who do not receive help are on multi-year waiting lists. For example, Charlotte just opened up their applications for public housing assistance for the first time in 14 years, and over 10,000 people applied.

Fact 9: One in five homeless people suffers from untreated severe mental illness. While about 6 percent of the general population suffers from severe mental illness, 20 to 25 percent of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness, according to government studies. Half of this population self-medicate and are at further risk for addiction and poor physical health. A University of Pennsylvania study tracking nearly 5,000 homeless people for two years discovered that investing in comprehensive health support and treatment of physical and mental illnesses is less costly than incarceration, shelter and hospital services for the untreated homeless.

Fact 10: Cities are increasingly making homelessness a crime. A 2014 survey of 187 cities by the NLCHP found that 24 percent of cities make it a city-wide crime to beg in public, 33 percent make it illegal to stand around or loiter anyplace in the city, 18 percent make it a crime to sleep anywhere in public, 43 percent make it illegal to sleep in your car, and 53 percent make it illegal to sit or lie down in particular public places. And the number of cities criminalizing homelessness is steadily increasing.

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Renee Delisle was one of over 3,500 homeless people in Santa Cruz when she found out she was pregnant. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported she was turned away from a shelter because they did not have space for her.

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People become homeless for many reasons. One of the reasons is because people lose a job or can not find a job. This causes homelessness because you get no income and can not afford to live anywhere. People with mental illnesses struggle to find a home and keeping a home because they have troubles with every day things and can barely if not even take care of themselves.

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There are many different reasons an individual or family falls into homelessness. While it's usually a combination of things, like losing a job or falling behind on rent, sometimes the cause of homelessness is one tragic incident like losing a partner that changes someone's living circumstance. So why do people become homeless? Learn a little more about the most common reasons, and meet a few neighbors who you may not even realize are experiencing homelessness.

Unemployment

Whether from losing a job, or not being able to find a job in the first place, unemployment is one of the major causes of homeless. No income, no way to keep up with living expenses. While the number of unemployed people fell to 7.4% the past few years, the number of people living in poverty has not declined. At 46.7 million living under the poverty line ($20,000 year for a family of three), that's 15.8% of the United States.

"A few months ago I was forced to be homeless after I lost my job and became delinquent on my payments. I am post graduate of San Francisco State University and recently graduated May 2014 with my B.A. in Broadcast Electronic Communication Arts with minor in World Music and Dance."

Personal or family crisis

Individuals with an established support network and steady income can be forced into homelessness if a major health issue or family emergency arises. For people already living below the poverty line, managing everyday incidents such as having a car towed can push someone into homelessness even faster. One major health issue can derail an individual's life including a family member's poor health or a death in the family. Even divorce can quickly spin into homelessness as it can be expensive and impact income significantly. Often these homeless experiences are short-term and transitional, especially for families.

"After a divorce, I moved to Alameda County for employment and a fresh start. Unfortunately I found, then lost, my job due to increasingly severe health issues (I'm a melanoma cancer survivor) and became homeless as a result of no income. At the same time my children's mother was struggling herself and I became the sole guardian of my three young children."

Affordable housing

In cities like San Francisco and New York, affordable and available housing is in short supply. But even outside these urban areas people are feeling crunched by the rising cost of living. Since 2007, the number of poor households increased by 27% - 11.25 million families are paying 50% or more of their income toward housing. According to The Department of Housing and Urban Development, families with only one full-time worker making minimum wage couldn't afford rent for a two-bedroom market-priced apartment anywhere in the country.

"15 years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and am still undergoing treatment. During this time I became homeless because my landlord evicted me so they could find a tenant to pay higher rent. Since then I have a had difficulty getting housed again because of the limited amount of affordable housing available in San Francisco."

Demographics: Youth and LGBTQ

Young people are often considered the "invisible homeless" - and there are fewer statistics for this group as they don't normally engage with services. For them, homelessness may begin as couchsurfing or crashing with friends, which is less drastic than sleeping outdoors. What we do know is that youth - including children and unaccompanied youth -  make up almost 8% of the homeless population - during a year around 550,000 youth and young adults up to age 24 experience homelessness, with 380,000 being under the age of 18.

Similarly, the LGBTQ community faces a unique set of challenges and are often more at risk of violence, abuse, and exploitation compared with their heterosexual peers. According to the Williams Institute, the most common factor to LGBTQ homelessness is from family rejection based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Youth are often met with harassment and discrimination when they try to seek out alternative housing, which contributes to their disproportionately growing rates of homelessness.

"I was born in Jordan... I lived in Amman till I was 15 years old. My family figured that sending me to live in America was the best way to get me away from them and away from the country that could have killed me for being a transgender...I am basically disowned. So my life has been quite a struggle."

Meet Giselle After paying my rent, phone bill, and electricity, I have very little money left for food at the end of the month... handup.org

No support network

It's easy to take your support network for granted, when you have one. But those who don't are sharply aware of the absence. Support networks can come in many forms: a family member, friend, co-worker, or even the greater community as we see on HandUp. Knowing that someone believes in you can make all the difference.

One thing to note is that even with state-funded programs to provide a safety net, these are often not enough to avoid homelessness. Currently, the median Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefit for a family of three is approximately one-third of the poverty level.

"I was born in Iran and I speak two languages, Turkish and Persian. I had a hard time in Turkey for being a homosexual refugee. The U.S. Embassy helped me get a Green Card. Two years ago I came to Los Angeles. It was challenging because English was my third language. It was hard to adjust to a new culture, new community, and new language. I had a really hard time with these big changes."

Mental health or substance abuse

According to the overall U.S. 2014 Point-In-Time Count, on any given night, nearly 20% of the homeless population had a serious mental illness. A subset of this group are homeless veterans, struggling with PTS and mental suffering. Those living with mental illness have challenges with everyday aspects of live like self care and often remain homeless for longer periods of time. There are major barriers to employment and consistent management of available services.

In 2012, one in five people in the U.S. who experienced homeless also struggled with chronic substance use problems  - 131,000 people altogether. For chronically homeless individuals who also suffer addiction, permanent supportive housing is key because it combines stable housing with intensive support and services. This means access to stigma-free, meaningful services along with housing.

"I am battling homelessness and poverty unable to maintain employment due disorders caused by my Honorable Military Service. I served Honorably Discharged. Now I need to ask for support to rebuild my life. My life weekly is consumed with almost daily doctor appointments. I was living in a fog for many years unaware that what I experienced in uniform made me ill. Been sober and not drunk in 3 years, after I finally started talking about what happened in service."

Everyone has a story and as a community we can make a difference first by understanding why homelessness happens. Then we can take action in our own neighborhood, whether that's stopping to say hello to a homeless neighbor, volunteering, or giving directly to someone in need on HandUp.

More Reading

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6 Reasons Why People Become Homeless - HandUp - Medium

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There are many different reasons an individual or family falls into homelessness. While it's usually a combination of things, like losing a job or falling behind on rent, sometimes the cause of homelessness is one tragic incident like losing a partner that changes someone's living circumstance. So why do people become homeless?

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Around 17 people are experiencing homelessness in a 10,000 general population. Homelessness is being increased around the United States .7% in the last couple years.

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As the Alliance publishes this updated version of the State of Homelessness, COVID-19 is creating a health and economic crisis in America and throughout the world. It is too soon to determine its ultimate impacts. Thus, this year's report represents a baseline-the state of homelessness before the crisis began. It also reflects some early considerations and predictions about the influence of the pandemic on this vulnerable population.
Homelessness in America

Seventeen out of every 10,000 people in the United States were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2019 during HUD's Annual Point-in-Time Count. These 567,715 people represent a cross-section of America. They are associated with every region of the country, family status, gender category, and racial/ethnic group.

Large Subpopulations. Certain subpopulations are significantly represented within homelessness:

Individuals. Seventy percent of people experiencing homelessness are individuals who are living on their own or in the company of other adults. The remainder (30 percent) are people in families with children.

Males. Homelessness is significantly defined by gender. Sixty percent of all people experiencing homelessness are male. Amongst individuals, the numbers are starker-70 percent are men and unaccompanied male youth.

Unsheltered. Far too many people in America sleep outside and in other locations not meant for human habitation. This group includes more than 200,000 people (37 percent of the overall population). Among individuals experiencing homelessness, the numbers are more dire-1 in 2 are unsheltered.

Most At Risk. Numerical size is one reason to focus on a subpopulation within homelessness. Risk is another. Some groups are much more likely to become homeless than the national average.

Pacific Islanders and Native Americans are most likely to be homeless in America when compared to all other racial/ethnic groups. Within the former, 160 people experience homelessness out of every 10,000 compared to the national average of 17 out of every 10,000. Pacific Islanders and Native Americans are numerically small groups within the U.S., making it more difficult for the U.S. Census Bureau and homelessness services systems to count them accurately. Nevertheless, available data suggest they face significant challenges.

Black Americans, multiracial Americans, and Hispanics/Latinxs are similarly situated. Group members are far more likely to be homeless than the national average and white Americans.

Prioritized Groups. Researchers and the public policy world have emphasized some additional subpopulations. Chronically homeless individuals are disabled and have experienced long-term and/or repeated episodes of homelessness. They are currently 17 percent of the population. Veterans, who are 7 percent of people experiencing homelessness, are prioritized due to their service to our country. And unaccompanied youth, who represent 6 percent of the population, are a vulnerable age group consisting of those under 25 years old.

COVID-19 Vulnerable. According to the CDC, some individuals are at higher risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19. They include older adults age 65 and over. However, people experiencing homelessness age faster than housed people. Research indicates they have physical conditions that mirror those of people 15-20 years older than them. On a single day, an estimated 202,623 single adults experiencing homelessness are over age 50, suggesting they may be uniquely vulnerable to becoming seriously ill during the pandemic crisis.

An additional CDC-identified risk group is people with pre-existing health conditions. Before the current crisis, growing numbers were experiencing unsheltered homelessness-a living situation associated with poor health. A recent study sampled unsheltered individuals from across the country, finding 84 percent self-reporting existing physical health conditions. Only 19 percent of people in shelters said the same.

Trends in Homelessness

Compared to the previous year, homelessness increased by 3 percent in the 2019 Point-in-Time Count. This marked the third straight year of national-level increases.

Despite this negative movement, the long-term trend has been downward. Overall homelessness has decreased by 12 percent since 2007, the year nation-wide data collection began. The current COVID-19 crisis has the potential to diminish or completely wipe out these modest gains.

Subpopulations. Existing progress has been uneven. Subpopulations prioritized in policy and practice (including funding decisions) have made the most impressive gains over the last decade. Veterans experienced the greatest decreases in homelessness-50 percent. Other subpopulations have realized smaller reductions that, nevertheless, are larger than those in overall homelessness. They include people in families (29 percent), chronically homeless individuals (9 percent), and people experiencing unsheltered homelessness (10 percent).

One group is noticeably falling behind all others. Individuals have only realized a 0.2 percent reduction in homelessness over the last decade. Some are veterans, unaccompanied youth, and chronically homeless. These subgroups have been experiencing greater progress than individuals more generally-but they only make up a minority of the individuals population and help to mask the delayed progress of a sizable majority who are not veterans, unaccompanied youth, or chronically homeless.

Individuals are also solely responsible for the national-level increases in overall homelessness that occurred over the last three years. Individual homelessness increased by 11 percent over that period even as numbers for people in families continued to decrease. This upwards trend exists across a broad range of individuals, including the chronically homeless, men, women, and every racial/ethnic group.

States. As with subpopulations, some states are making more progress towards ending homelessness than others.

Thirty states reduced homelessness since the previous year. Long-term trends further highlight the more successful stories. A majority (37) have reduced homelessness since 2007, with the most significant gains occurring in Michigan (-70 percent), Kentucky (-49 percent), and New Jersey (-49 percent).

Other states have more people experiencing homelessness than they did more than a decade ago. Fourteen have seen their numbers increase between 2 and 72 percent over that period. New and decisive action is necessary to ensure these states build real momentum in the fight against homelessness.

Geographic Regions Experiencing the Greatest Challenges

Identifying the regions with the most challenges informs nation-wide efforts to end homelessness.

Counts. One approach is to examine the locations with the highest homeless counts. They include states such as California, Florida, New York, and Texas as well as Continuums of Care (CoCs) serving New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Texas' Balance of State. These locations share a common characteristic-relatively large general populations. They include major cities and Balance of States encompassing broad expanses of land (with numerous towns and cities).

Fifty-six percent of people experiencing homelessness are in the five states that have the largest homeless counts. More than 1 in 3 are in the twenty CoCs with the highest numbers of people experiencing homelessness. Thus, much of this national challenge is located in a small number of places, with most jurisdictions having a much smaller problem to manage.

Rates. Rates of homelessness are another way of gauging the severity of the problem within a jurisdiction. They reflect the number of people experiencing homelessness in relation to the general population.

Rates across the country are wildly divergent. Amongst states/territories, the District of Columbia (93 people experiencing homelessness out of every 10,000) and New York (47 out of 10,000) have the highest rates. By contrast, Louisiana (6 out of 10,000) and Mississippi (4 out of 10,000) have the lowest rates. Many homeless people reside in high rate jurisdictions. Forty-five percent are in the five states/territories with the highest rates.

Many of the high rate states and CoCs are associated with other notable housing issues. Researchers and advocates cite many of them as having the highest housing costs and highest rent burdens (housing costs as a percentage of income) in the nation.

Some states and CoCs are anomalies. Their counts and rates defy expectations rooted in overall population size and housing costs. Those states and communities may possess unusual characteristics tied to history, government policy, or culture. Some may have homeless services systems that are either highly effective or falling far short of their potential.

COVID-19. Counts and rates typically offer useful information about the challenges facing homeless systems-they reflect the number of people who need homeless services. During the current pandemic, there is a new challenge-the number of people who contract an infectious illness (COVID-19) while needing homeless services.

Self-quarantine, social isolation, and stay-at-home orders are difficult, if not impossible, to follow when you do not have a home. Thus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has offered guidance on how to best serve people in shelters and unsheltered locations. Meeting COVID-19-related health needs is putting new strain on homeless services systems, especially those with large numbers of infected consumers.

Recent research predicts the number of COVID-19 cases that will arise among people experiencing homelessness in the nation's counties. Those facing the most severe challenges mainly reside in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York City, San Jose, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

Homeless Assistance in America

Homeless services systems do not have enough resources to fully meet the needs of everyone experiencing homelessness. Thus, it is helpful to examine the difficult decisions they must make, including how to allot the limited funds available to them.

Temporary Housing. Over the last five years, the number of temporary housing beds (Emergency Shelter, Safe Haven, and Transitional Housing) has decreased by 9 percent.

A national-level snapshot of these beds during the Point-in-Time count is informative. Individual community circumstances vary. However, in the aggregate, systems were able to offer a year-round bed to only 51 percent of individuals and 100 percent of people in families (the latter with a surplus of over 15,000 beds).

During the winter months, some communities temporarily supplement these year-round beds with seasonal ones. Nevertheless, many people are unsheltered, living on the streets, in abandoned buildings, or other locations not suitable for human habitation. Being unsheltered is mostly a challenge for individual adults, but some families with children are also in these living situations.

COVID-19 is creating a new type of emergency. According to an early estimate, 400,000 new units are needed to prevent the spread of the virus and care for the sick. These accommodations would allow for social distancing, quarantine, and isolation for people who are typically in crowded shelter settings or living unsheltered.

Permanent Housing. While the number of temporary housing beds decreased by 9 percent, the number of permanent housing beds (Permanent Supportive Housing, Rapid Re-Housing, and Other) increased by 20 percent over the last five years.

These numbers reflect a shift in policy priorities. Renewed emphasis is on ending homelessness by moving more people into permanent housing, rather than allowing them to linger indefinitely in shelters and unsheltered locations.

Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia have participated in this trend over the last five years, growing their number of permanent housing beds. Eleven states and territories increased them by more than 50 percent over this short period of years.

Currently, 57 percent of all homeless system beds are designated for permanent housing.

Common Forms of Assistance. Nationally, the most common type of homeless assistance is permanent supportive housing (PSH). Forty-one percent of system beds are in this category which has grown by 96 percent since 2007. Emergency shelter beds, the second most prevalent intervention, have increased by 38 percent since 2007.

Rapid rehousing, the newest type of permanent housing intervention, is continuing along a path of rapid growth. There are 87 percent more beds in this category than there were five years ago.

Transitional housing is the only intervention on the decline-there are 55 percent fewer beds in this category than there were in 2007. This shift is a part of the trend towards more investment in permanent housing solutions.

Populations at Risk of Homelessness

Many Americans live in poverty, amounting to 38.1 million people or 11.8 percent of the U.S. population. They struggle to afford necessities such as housing.

In 2018, 6.5 million Americans experienced severe housing cost burden, which means they spent more than 50 percent of their income on housing. This marked the fourth straight year of decreases in the size of this group. However, the number of severely cost burdened Americans is still 13 percent higher than it was in 2007, the year the nation began monitoring homelessness data.

Another measure of housing hardship is "doubling up," or sharing the housing of others for economic reasons. In 2018, an estimated 4 million people were in these situations. Some of these people have fragile relationships with their hosts or face other challenges in the home, putting them at risk of homelessness. Over the last five years, this number of doubled up people has been trending downward but is still 12 percent higher than it was in 2007.

Over the last decade, the nation hasn't made any real progress in reducing the number of Americans who are at risk of homelessness.

Further, few states are realizing significant improvements in these areas. Within the category of severe housing cost burden, Colorado tops the list but has only reduced its numbers by 13 percent since 2007. Over the same period, Colorado is also the state making the most significant progress in the doubled up category-however, its number only decreased by 34 percent. Most states are seeing their severe housing cost burden and doubled up numbers grow.

Sources and Methodology

Data on homelessness are based on annual point-in-time (PIT) counts conducted by Continuums of Care (CoCs) to estimate the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night. The latest counts are from January 2019. Point-in-time data from 2007 to 2019 are available on HUD Exchange.

Rates of homelessness are a comparison of point-in-time counts to state, county, and city population data from the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program, accessed via American FactFinder (table PEPANNRES: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population, 2018 version). Most CoC boundaries align with one or multiple counties, and about a dozen align with cities that are entirely within one county. However, four CoCs align with city boundaries spanning multiple counties (Atlanta, GA; Amarillo, TX; Kansas City, MO; and Oklahoma City, OK). For these, the population was estimated based on prior year trends.

Data on homeless assistance, or bed capacity of homeless services programs on a given night, are reported annually by CoCs along with point-in-time counts. These data are compiled in the Housing Inventory Count (HIC), which is also available on HUD Exchange for 2007 through 2019.

Data on at risk populations are from analyses by the National Alliance to End Homelessness of the Census Bureau's 2018 American Community Survey 1-year Estimates, accessed via American FactFinder. Poor renter households with a severe housing cost burden are households whose total income falls under the applicable poverty threshold and who are paying 50 percent or more of total household income to housing rent. For people living doubled up, poverty is based on the composition and income of the entire household as compared to the poverty thresholds. A person is considered living doubled up based on his or her relationship to the head of household and includes: an adult child (18 years old or older) who is not in school, is married, and/or has children; a sibling; a parent or parent-in-law; an adult grandchild who is not in school; a grandchild who is a member of a subfamily; a son- or daughter-in-law; another relative; or any non-relative.

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State of Homelessness: 2020 Edition - National Alliance to End Homelessness

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As the Alliance publishes this updated version of the State of Homelessness, COVID-19 is creating a health and economic crisis in America and throughout the world. It is too soon to determine its ultimate impacts. Thus, this year's report represents [...]

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Some countries have laws against sleeping on the streets. Others are beginning to make laws as such. Not having somewhere to sleep is a worldwide problem that most countries struggle with.

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To help our supporters better understand this global problem, we have sought to compile the latest available statistics on the challenges faced by people around the globe.

The last time a global survey was attempted - by the United Nations in 2005 - an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. As many as 1.6 billion people lacked adequate housing (Habitat, 2015). In 2021, the World Economic Forum reported that 150 million people were homeless worldwide.

Getting an accurate picture of global homelessness is extremely challenging. Definitions of homelessness vary from country to country. Census data is typically collected based on household and, while most census data takes into account those living in shelters and receiving government aid, census takers struggle to count the "hidden homeless" - those who may be residing in inadequate settlements such as slums, squatting in structures not intended for housing, couch surfing with friends and family, and those who relocate frequently.

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Global Homelessness Statistics - Homeless World Cup

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Explore the global state of homelessness, including housing policies and find out how countries are tackling homelessness

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Standup for kids offers quick and easy access to help teens out by donating and volunteering. Their website allows for 1 click donations as they use the money for housing, food, and mentoring opportunities.

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StandUp for Kids | Ending the Cycle of Youth Homelessness

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StandUp For Kids helps homeless and street kids every day in cities across America. We carry out our mission through our volunteers, who go to the streets.

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Moore, Henry. Shelter Scene:Bunks and Sleepers. 1941, watercolor, gouache, ink and chalk on paper, Tate Gallery, London, England.