More than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2024. That is the highest estimated number of homelessness The United States has ever recorded. Toward the end of every year, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) releases “an annual snapshot of individuals in shelters, temporary housing, and unsheltered settings.” The 771,480 individuals counted on one night in January of 2024 across the country marks an 18-percent increase from 2023.
Nashville fared better with a decrease of 1.6 percent in overall homelessness, with the unsheltered population count increasing by 135 people (a 23 percent increase) and the sheltered count decreasing by 170 people (an 11 percent decrease). We reported on the local breakdown of the data in our September-25, 2024-issue.
In practical terms, Nashville’s homeless population remained stagnant from 2023 to 2024, after seeing an 11-percent increase from 2022 to 2023. The national increase between 2022 and 2023 was 12 percent.
In its press release, HUD said that family homelessness increased by 39 percent from 2023 to 2024. “In the 13 communities that reported being affected by migration, family homelessness more than doubled,” the release reads. Looking at the remaining communities, the rise in family homelessness was less than 8 percent.
HUD cautioned that the data, which was released at the end of December, is one year old and meanwhile the situation of asylum seekers has changed with several cities, including Denver and Chicago, reporting that their migrant shelter census is down since migrant arrivals had dropped significantly by fall of 2024.
Nashville’s PIT count showed a lower increase in homelessness compared to the national average. The increase in family households experiencing homelessness was a little over 3 percent from 2023 to 2024 or 5 percent when looking at the number of individuals living in those households with at least one adult and a minor.
However, Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPD) saw a 26-percent increase in its annualized student homelessness census at the end of May 2024 over the previous school year. While this data is not directly comparable to PIT count numbers — because, for one, it is annualized (while the PIT count is a one-day snapshot) and secondly, it uses a broader definition of homelessness — both data sets indicate that Nashville is seeing an increase in families struggling with housing security.
The validity of the PIT count has been controversial for years. But for me, the PIT count still has relevance when taken together as a part of different data sets to offer a fuller picture of homelessness at the national and local levels. Rather than focusing on the actual number of people experiencing homelessness when examining the PIT count data, I pay attention to the percentage change over a lengthy period of time.
When we look at the national trend line, we see that after years of slight but steady declines, homelessness began to increase during the COVID pandemic. The charts below do not include the year 2021 because it did not provide a comparable picture as many cities, including Nashville, did not conduct an outdoor homelessness count that year. In Nashville, we saw a significant increase in homelessness starting in 2022, one year later compared to the national trend.
There is a lot of speculation about PIT count data results every year as to why homeless numbers are up or down, but no real analysis has been conducted locally. I explain this with the fact that it takes time to shift a community to a data-driven effort. Having said that, I believe we will see more discussion in the near future about homelessness data.
A data-driven approach allows us to better understand where our investments and efforts are bearing fruit and adjust according to trends we see. However, while I will always advocate for quality data, I am also warning that politicians tend to use data to push for and justify quick fixes — as we see in Tennessee’s approach to passing laws that increasingly criminalize homelessness.
With the incoming federal administration’s prior history and current rhetoric supporting the criminalization of homelessness to ensure people without housing become invisible, having strong local leadership in place is more important than ever. We need local leaders willing and capable to push back on political pressure (whether from local, state, or national sources) and ensure that we put people’s needs first. The goal should always be to invest in actual solutions that work for people we want to serve rather than for politicians and NIMBY (“Not in My Back Yard”) folks.
The Importance of the PIT Count in Relation to Other Data Sources
Point-in-Time (PIT) counts happen annually during the past 10 days of January in about 385 Continuums of Care (CoCs) across the country. CoCs are geographically defined areas where cross-sector organizations work together to build a homeless crisis response system (in Nashville we referred to it as a Housing Crisis Response System). Each CoC is eligible to participate in a national funding competition to address homelessness in their area.
While PIT count numbers are largely an undercount and only focus on a narrowly defined homelessness definition, they provide national and local trends, as previously mentioned. Besides the annual PIT count, HUD requires each CoC to report data through its Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), which is more accurate and capable of producing annualized numbers and performance measures.
Trends provided through HMIS data alone can be volatile depending on funding requirements. If funding sources require that an organization enters data into HMIS, but then that funding source gets lost, an organization may consequently submit less data, less reliable data, or no data at all. Thus, we may seemingly note an increase or decrease in homelessness, but at closer look, fewer organizations and programs may have contributed data. HMIS heavily depends on the quality of data that is entered. Since 2019, Nashville has diligently improved HMIS data entry, but it takes time to build a comprehensive system. I believe we are at a point now where a baseline is reached and with expert analysis (ideally independent of Metro, which manages the HMIS database), HMIS can help us evaluate where to invest and how to approach homelessness more effectively.
Trends provided through the PIT count data set can help us evaluate and monitor HMIS data and allow us to raise valuable questions of what is really going on at the local level and whether our efforts and investments are sufficient. A third data set that should be consulted is the Local Education Agency (LEA) homelessness numbers. While the Department of Education uses a much broader definition of homelessness than HUD, it captures the housing instability of families with school children.
If we are serious about ending chronic homelessness, we must pay attention to preventing and ending child and youth homelessness. Chronic homelessness is roughly defined as people with a disabling condition who sleep in shelters, outdoors and in places not meant for human habitation for more than a year (or who have experienced four episodes of homelessness within the past three years, adding up to a total of 365 days).
The PIT Count Data Shows What Solves Homelessness
Even though the nation has recorded its largest homelessness numbers ever, according to the recent PIT count results, homelessness among Veterans has reached a record low with a nearly eight percent decrease between 2023 to 2024. In Nashville, Veteran homelessness decreased by about 3 percent over that time span.
Since 2010, Veteran homelessness has been cut in half in the United States thanks to a collaborative approach between HUD and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Congress invested billions in funding in the HUD-VASH program, which provides rental subsidies coupled with support services to help Veterans access and maintain housing. National and international news reports over the past few weeks did not pay enough attention to that success and what it means for ending homelessness.
Veteran homelessness increased slightly between 2022 and 2023, which the federal government explained by unavailability of obtainable affordable housing. The HUD-VASH program functions similarly to the Section 8 rental assistance, but the subsidies are specifically targeted to assist Veterans. Having rent assistance does not mean people are able to find housing. Thus, the conversation of the lack of accessible housing for low-income people cannot be decoupled from homelessness anymore.
In August of 2020, the federal Government Accountability Office released a report that found that a $100 per month increase in rent is associated with a 9-percent increase in the rate of homelessness. Besides rent increases, job loss was another factor mentioned as significantly contributing to an increase in overall homelessness. The same report also strongly critiqued the limitations of the PIT count data to provide accurate numbers of homelessness.
However, when we look at trends (rather than actual numbers), we can still see that some cities have shown significant progress over the last few years even with the recent national PIT count increases. Those include, among others, Austin, and Dallas (both in Texas), Hennepin County (Minnesota), Chester County (Pennsylvania), and even Los Angeles County.
In Nashville, the trends showed a steady, but slow decline in homelessness prior to 2022, even though rents had increased by more than 40 percent over the previous decade and the city did not increase its resources. However, Nashville’s community shifted its focus during that same time to building a housing-focused, person-centered, and data-driven approach during which we heavily invested in cross-sector relationship-building and coordination between government, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations. That approach seems to have paid off to keep our numbers decreasing steadily between 2016 and 2022.
Then in 2022, the city significantly increased its investments with a $50-million, three-year infusion to address homelessness. In addition, Nashville increased its annual Metro budget for homelessness from less than $2 million prior to 2022 to about $6 million.
With private market housing developments and the opening of the Strobel House in 2024, we have added hundreds of permanent supportive housing units in Nashville. In addition, rent increases have slowed over the past couple of years. All these influences hopefully will lead to a lower PIT count in 2025. But before we celebrate, we must invest in accurate, expert data analysis to truly evaluate what is happening and how effective our recent investments have been. In other words, anyone with a $50 million one-time check and a $6-million annual budget can house more people. The question is, did we invest with long-term solutions in mind, or did we focus on quick fixes to satisfy our politicians and move homelessness out of sight as a short-term measure?
An academic and politically independent partnership could evaluate different data sets and paint a fuller picture. And most importantly: we cannot forget that listening to the people being served is imperative if we want to truly analyze the effectiveness of our interventions.