NYPIRG Homeless Project: Facts & Stats

Homeless & Hunger Statistics & Facts

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National Homeless Estimates: 700,000 per night; 2 million/year. (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 1999).

Thirty-one million Americans now live in hunger or on the edge of hunger. (State Government Responses to the Food Assistance Gap 2000, Third Annual Report and 50 State Survey, December 2000).

One in five people in a soup kitchen line is a child (America's Second Harvest, Hunger 1997: The Faces & Facts).

In 1999, approximately 12 million American children were hungry or at risk of hunger (United States Department of Agriculture, Household Food Security in the United States, Fall 2000).

Families are the largest and fastest growing segment of the homeless population. New York City officials report a record of 6,252 families with a total of 20, 655 members are lodging nightly in city shelters, with rapid increase. (Use of Shelters By Families Sets Record in City, New York Times; Metropolitan Desk, August 1, 2001). In 2000, requests for emergency food assistance from families with children increased by 16% in American cities over the past year, the highest rate of increase since the recession of 1991 (U.S. Conference of Mayors, Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities, December 2000).

Nearly 1 in 5 children (more than 12 million) in the U.S. live in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2000 Update). The U.S. child poverty rate is higher than that of most other industrialized nations.

In 1999, more than half of all food stamp recipients, 9.3 million people were children (Children's Defense Fund, Poverty Matters: The Cost of Child Poverty in America, 2000).

Nearly 9 million children in the U.S. live in working poor families (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Poverty Despite Work Handbook, 1999).

In its 1998 survey of 30 cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that the homeless population was 49% African-American, 32% Caucasian, 12% Hispanic, 4% Native American, and 3% Asian (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 1998).

46% of cities surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 1998).

Research indicates that 40% of homeless men have served in the armed forces, as compared to 34% of the general adult male population (Rosenheck, Robert, Homeless Veterans, in Homelessness in America, 1996).

Approximately 20-25% of the single adult homeless population suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness (Koegel, Paul, The Causes of Homelessness, Homelessness in America, 1996, Oryx Press.). According to the Federal Task Force on Homelessness and Severe Mental Illness, only 5-7% of homeless persons with mental illness require institutionalization; most can live in the community with the appropriate supportive housing options (Federal Task Force on Homelessness and Severe Mental Illness, 1992).

Recent research indicates that even mild under-nutrition experienced by young children during critical periods of growth may lead to reductions in physical growth and affect brain development (The Links Between Nutrition and Cognitive Development of Children, 1998, Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy).

There were record levels of homelessness in New York after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks. (New Wave of the Homeless Floods Cities' Shelters, The New York Times; National Desk, December 18, 2001)

* The 500,000-600,000 estimate is sometimes updated by using a projected rate of increase of 5% a year to produce an estimate of over 700,000 people homeless on any given night, and up to 2 million people who experience homelessness during one year. As a result of methodological and financial constraints, most studies are limited to counting people who are literally homeless -- that is, in shelters or on the streets. While this approach may yield useful information about the number of people who use services such as shelters and soup kitchens, or who are easy to locate on the street, it can result in underestimates of homelessness.