2007 Annual Homeless Assessment Report
A Summary of Findings
In its Third Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that last year the country experienced an 11 percent decrease in homelessness, including a 30 percent drop in chronic homelessness since 2005.
The report's data was generated by Homeless Management Information Systems and point-in-time studies from Continuums of Care. The report notes that "some of the decrease in the total number of homeless persons on a single night may be 'real'," but also warned that some of the decline could be attributed to data collection methods. The report warned that the declines should be interpreted with caution. This is largely due to the difficulty associated with counting homeless people, particularly counting the number of chronically homeless people.
This year's report is particularly innovative because it estimates the homeless population for an entire year. 1.6 million people experienced homelessness between October 1, 2006 and September 20, 2007, of which 77 percent were in cities and 23 percent were in suburban and rural areas; 70 percent were individuals and 30 percent were persons in families; 64 percent were minorities and 69 percent were men. Interestingly, there were approximately 131,000 families who were homeless during the year period (this does not include those who did not use shelter and those utilizing domestic violence shelters). Still, this number is significantly lower than original annual estimates (420,000 to 600,000 families), highlighting that homelessness among families is a solvable problem.
In the future, HUD hopes to include more sample sites, information from other types of homeless service providers, and special reports on homeless subpopulations. HUD's main goal is for the AHAR to become the primary source for homelessness information, so as to better allocate funds, improve programs and inform policy decisions.
