The Wall Street Journal reports that the number of homeless people in the United States could exceed 654,000 by the end of 2024, which would be a new record. “There are now about 550,000 homeless people, up about 10% from the same period last year. The trend means the U.S. is likely to surpass the 653,000 homeless people that were the record for 2023,” the paper writes. Despite this high number, it’s likely that it is far higher due to a large number of unreported cases.
Rising housing prices and high rents have forced families out of their homes, the article notes, but it is also caused by the marginalization of society through drug use, and possibly by the influx of migrants brought by buses from Texas to Chicago, Denver and other northern cities.
In December 2023, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had reported that the number of homeless people in the country in 2022 exceeded 650 thousand, breaking the historical record.
