Nation taking a new look at homelessness, solutions

by Martin Kasindorf
October 11, 2005

Courtesy of USA Today © 2005

Months before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck, volunteer searchers found 6,251 homeless people living in the coastal areas of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. The search was part of an unprecedented count of the nation's homeless population that the federal government asked cities and counties to conduct.

That snapshot tally was 727,304 homeless people nationwide, meaning about one in 400 Americans were without a home, according to a USA TODAY survey of all 460 localities that reported results to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in June.

HUD will need six months to add up the local reports, and the agency isn't planning to announce the total because counting methods weren't uniform, spokesman Brian Sullivan says. Whatever flaws the count may have, it is the most ambitious attempt ever to measure the scope of homelessness in the nation.

Earlier estimates were based on statistical sampling techniques. A 2000 study by the Urban Institute estimated 444,000 to 842,000 homeless people.