HUD’s most recent Point-in-Time count was conducted in December of 2022. Based on HUD’s 2022 Annual Assessment Report, roughly 582,500 individuals experienced homelessness on that one given night. In contrast, based on data from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Center for Homeless Education, upwards of 2.3 million children from birth to grade 12 experience homelessness each year in the United States, the majority of whom experience doubled-up homelessness when they are first identified by schools. Further, an estimated 3.7 million people in the U.S. were doubled-up in 2019, according to research conducted by Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Vanderbilt University, and Heartland Alliance. To see what child and youth homelessness looks like in your community, based on the education definition of homelessness, explore interactive data profiles from SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. 

Based on HUD’s guidance, U.S. policymakers have concluded that those who are experiencing doubled-up homelessness or in self-paid motels are not in fact homeless—they are “unstably housed.” As a result, those that are doubled-up or in self-paid motels are not eligible for federal homeless assistance, and are instead referred to more general housing assistance. Where (very limited) vouchers/housing units are available, recipients are often not able to access or are not eligible for the necessary associated services to remain stably housed, perpetuating the complex cycle of family and youth homelessness.  

It is also important to note that under HUD’s definition, congressional leaders are making policy decisions with inadequate data. Each year as part of the annual congressional spending package, HUD is allocated monies specifically for homeless assistance—mostly through Homeless Assistance Grants, or HAG grants. Congress uses an Annual Homeless Assessment Report to review the current level of need and progress, based on HUD’s most recent Point-in-Time count. As the PIT count only includes those that are experiencing homelessness under the restrictive HUD definition, it limits Congress’s ability to discern the true extent of homelessness and associated needs required for response, often giving a false sense of “progress.” 

Further, HUD’s definition and PIT count directly conflict with the mission and legal mandate of public schools (under The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act) to proactively identify, enroll, and serve all children and youth experiencing homelessness. The HUD count creates an incentive to under-identify, because communities receive points—impacting the amount of federal funding they receive—when their homeless numbers go down. In contrast, increasing numbers of students identified as homeless and enrolled by public schools are often seen as a positive sign of effective outreach to families experiencing homelessness, to be commended.  

When the number of students identified as homeless goes down, schools are more likely to attribute this to barriers to identifying students’ housing status rather than a sign of decreases in homelessness. For example, during the 2020-21 school year—the height of the pandemic—Chicago Public Schools (CPS) reported serving the lowest number of students identified as homeless by CPS in 13 years despite the clear impact of the pandemic on housing instability and homelessness.  

Researchers at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), Vanderbilt University, and the Heartland Alliance Social IMPACT Research Center developed a census-based model to estimate people experiencing homelessness that incorporates children, family, and adults living doubled-up. First used to provide a comprehensive homeless estimate in Chicago in 2016, CCH continues to release an annual count of Chicago’s homeless population each year. A doubled-up estimate for the state of Illinois was included for the first time in the 2022 report. 

Research on this peer-reviewed methodology was published in Housing Policy Debate in January 2022. Using this method, researchers found that 3.7 million people in the U.S. population were doubled-up in 2019. 

Together with Family Promise, National Network for Youth, SchoolHouse Connection, and Vanderbilt University, CCH leads a Homelessness Data Project that seeks to expand its model for estimating doubled-up homelessness across the United States. CCH has developed a toolkit to train organizations and advocates on how to conduct a comprehensive homeless estimate in their region. The goal is to build a more accurate snapshot of what homelessness looks like across the country, while also building a base committed to aligning HUD’s definition of homelessness to include people living doubled-up. 

The inaugural training cohort included school districts and organizations in California, Hawai’i, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

In 2009, Congress made some extremely limited changes to the HUD statute that theoretically would have aligned its definition to include slightly more people staying with others and in motels, under certain conditions. However, HUD then imposed regulations that essentially gutted that statutory expansion, imposing burdensome rules and documentation requirements, including that it must approve any use of funds for the narrow expansion. To date, HUD has not approved any such request from any community. Moreover, HUD has established priorities and program models that effectively exclude consideration of those who meet the narrowly expanded definition. 

There is broad support for HUD to change its definition among child, youth, and family homelessness providers. This support has been growing over the years and it is consistently identified as a key policy barrier in our work to solve homelessness in the United States. In fact, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent federal agency that conducts research, researched U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policies as they relate to ending youth homelessness. Through this, GAO identified the barriers to getting approval from HUD to serve homeless youth who are staying with others as an area for improvement to increase access to housing assistance for youth.  

Read the full GAO report which details the findings regarding HUD policies and their recommendations here: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-540 

Over the years, the Homeless Children and Youth Act has seen an increase in support, with over 70 national organizations endorsing. A full list of supporting organizations can be found here. HCYA passed out of the House Financial Services subcommittee in July 2018 after a robust legislative hearing in June 2018. The number of co-sponsors has also grown with each introduction. 

Finally, national publications are starting to recognize the shortcomings of our country’s method of counting homelessness and are highlighting the issue and calling for a change.