On a single night in 2019, roughly 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. Nearly two-thirds (63%) were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters or transitional housing programs—and more than one-third (37%) were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation.

While homelessness in most states declined between2018 and 2019, homelessness in California increased

by 16 percent, or 21,306 people. The large increasein California is reflected in a nationwide increase of 3

percent, or 14,885 people experiencing homelessness, between 2018 and 2019.

After slight increases between 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, homelessness increased by 3 percent between

2018 and 2019, driven primarily by increases in West Coast states. These increases outpaced continued

declines in much of the rest of the country. The 2018-2019 increase reflects modest declines (0.5%) in the

number of people staying in sheltered locations offset by a substantially larger increase (9%) in the number of

people staying in unsheltered locations.