A new report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development finds that in 2024 there were more than 771,000 homeless people in the United States. Of these, about 320,000 people lived in emergency shelters or transitional housing. But more than 241,000 people were “unsheltered.” The overall homeless population was up 18 percent from 2023.
Nearly 228,000 of the 771,000 homeless population was African American. Thus, Black Americans made up 29.5 percent of all those classified as homeless.
More than 143,000 African Americans lived in temporary shelters. Another 24,000 African American lived in what is call “transitional housing.” But there were nearly 60,000 African Americans who were classified as “unsheltered.” Blacks were nearly 22 percent of all unsheltered Americans. There were more Black among the unsheltered group than any other racial or ethnic group in the survey, except for Whites.
