The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that homelessness dropped by 6% from 2025 to January 2026, amounting to about 49,000 fewer people living without permanent housing in the US. Homelessness also decreased by about 3.3% from 2024 to 2025; prior to 2024, homelessness had been increasing steadily since the COVID-19 pandemic and reached a record high in the 2024 count.
The Insight provides you the full picture of facts and viewpoints on a top issue for Americans each week, powered by your questions and balanced answers from our multipartisan news team.
The Questions
What explains the recent drop in homelessness? How do Left and Right interpret the data?
Nearly half of the national drop in homelessness came from New York City, Chicago, Boston, and Denver, according to the New York Times’ (Lean Left bias) analysis of the Community Solutions report. All of these cities maintain Sanctuary City policies that were targeted by the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown, implying that the strict immigration policies and enforcement had some impact on the numbers.
Another debate when it comes to addressing homelessness is the “Housing First” or “Treatment First” approaches; the divide between providing shelter as a first priority versus requiring addiction treatment in order to receive housing. President Donald Trump, a proponent of the Treatment First approach, has criticized former President Joe Biden’s Housing First approach, saying that it contributed to the substantial increase in homelessness under his administration.
Some on the left cite the drop in veteran homelessness specifically as supporting evidence for the Housing First approach. Veteran homelessness dropped 7.8% in 2025 and has decreased between 56% and 60% since 2010. Most of this progress has been attributed to veteran-supportive housing vouchers through the HUD, which provides housing without any addiction treatment requirements.
However, homelessness also decreased significantly in San Francisco after it expanded its sober-living housing options, pointing towards the effectiveness of Treatment First programs.
However, while the biggest left-right divide in homelessness policies occurs over immigration, asylum cities, and types of shelter options, a few other factors may have contributed to the positive change in 2025.
The CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness said the softening rental market in some areas likely prevented the flow of newly unhoused people. Additionally, natural disaster relief funding in places like North Carolina and Hawaii may have brought in aid to people that were not getting assistance before.
How does US homelessness compare internationally?
The U.S. has one of the higher rates of people living on the streets or in public spaces, but has fewer people staying in temporary shelters than other developed nations like the U.K., France, and Germany.
Finland is the only European nation where homelessness fell consistently over the past decade (by 68% between 2008 and 2022).
How will Democratic control of Congress change the issue?
A YouGov (Center bias) poll in August found that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say homelessness was a very serious problem in the U.S. (73% vs. 46%).
With Democrats in control of Congress, federal homelessness policy could shift toward increasing housing assistance, expanding social services and investing more in homelessness prevention efforts. However, any legislation would also be dependent on federal budgets and opposing views among congressional members about what leads to homelessness and the best way forward.
Democrats would also be up against several homelessness policy changes from the Trump administration.
Trump Policy: In September 2026, Associated Press (Lean Left) reported that the Trump administration was shifting homelessness funding away from Housing First, which prioritized permanent housing without requiring people to complete treatment programs.
Democrat Control: Democrats could attempt to reverse the decision and restore funding, including placing restrictions on how the Department of Housing and Urban Development distributes grants for homelessness services.
Trump Policy: In July 2025, President Trump signed an executive order to move homeless people off the streets and into long-term institutional settings. CBS News (Lean Left) cited opponents saying the effort would strain state treatment centers and criminalize the homeless population, while a Fox News opinion (Right) writer argued Democrats were defending a system that led to the high number of mentally ill people living on the streets in the first place.
Democrat Control: A Democrat-controlled Congress could pursue oversight of the federal agencies involved in this effort and attempt to restrict funding for programs that prioritize involuntary treatment over housing assistance.
Trump Policy: The overall cost of living was among the main concerns for voters this midterm election, aided by the Iran war, tariffs and cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. To address housing cost concerns, Congress passed a bipartisan bill earlier this year aimed at increasing the housing supply and lowering costs.
Democrat Control: Democrats could continue to build on existing bipartisan legislation and use their leverage to address housing affordability overall. According to Forbes (Center), the Democratic agenda includes expanding low-income tax credits to accelerate new home construction and strip federal tax breaks from private equity firms buying up single-family homes.
What’s the primary obstacle to further reducing homelessness?
Voices across the spectrum criticized what they see as wide-scale financial mismanagement when it comes to solving homelessness.
There’s “a fundamental problem with Washington’s approach to homelessness: More spending, more providers, and more services, but not more progress,” wrote The Daily Wire (Right). “America’s homelessness crisis is too serious for a federal funding system that incentivizes activity over results.”
A writer for USA TODAY (Lean Left) decried “the incentives of an increasingly lucrative enterprise” built around homelessness: “Billions flow through a network of government bureaucracies, taxpayer-funded nonprofits, consultants and housing developers. Contracts multiply. Administrative empires and executive salaries expand. Yet what matters most – lives being restored – seems like a forgotten part of the equation.”
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