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U.S. homelessness jumps to record high amid affordable housing shortage

The annual federal count finds more than 770,000 people living in shelters or outside. It cites rising rents and the recent surge in migrants as key factors behind the increase.

I think we're still in — for deeply poor people — a real recovery from the pandemic," says Jeff Olivet, who until recently was executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. The report also says extreme weather disasters contributed to the rise, and specifically cites last year's fire in Maui that had left 5,200 people still in shelters during the January count. President-elect Trump supports these bans on so-called street camping and a landmark Supreme Court decision this year allowed cities to enforce them even if people have nowhere else to go.

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