US Homelessness Falls to 698,425 in Largest Drop in Over a Decade

Homelessness in the United States fell by more than 6 percent in the latest federal count, the largest drop in more than a decade, and the two sides of the housing debate agree on almost nothing else about it. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on November 6 that the 2026 Point-in-Time count found 698,425 people homeless on a single night in January, a decrease of 6.3 percent. NPR, reporting the same count a day later, put the human scale on it: roughly 49,000 fewer people without housing, in the second straight year of decline after the total climbed to record highs. Nearly 700,000 people still live in shelters or on the streets, well above the level before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The count is the federal government's main yardstick. Volunteers and outreach workers in communities across the country count everyone they can find on one night each January, in shelters, in transitional housing, and outside. It is a snapshot, not a census, and HUD had not posted the detailed report behind the headline numbers when it announced them, NPR reported. State by state breakdowns are still to come.

What each side credits

HUD Secretary Scott Turner credited the president directly. "President Trump's actions to secure the border, get criminal illegals off our streets, and restore safety to our communities drove a historic decrease in homelessness," Turner said in the release. HUD pointed to border enforcement, to a Supreme Court decision in 2024 that let cities limit encampments, and to its shift away from the Housing First approach toward what it calls Treatment First, which ties help to addiction treatment. HUD said homelessness had risen 28 percent from 2022 to 2025 under the old policy.

The independent analysis commissioned by the National Alliance to End Homelessness found a similar size of decline and a different story underneath it. "It's good news that more people are getting housed, and that the programs that are funded by Congress are working," said the alliance's chief executive, Ann Oliva, in NPR's reporting. Oliva credited housing programs that place people without preconditions, and she singled out veterans: homelessness among veterans fell more than 7 percent last year and has dropped nearly 60 percent since 2010. She also pointed to softer rental markets in some places, with rents down from pandemic peaks, which can slow the flow of people losing homes in the first place.

The details inside the drop

Devon Kurtz of the Cicero Institute, an administration ally on homelessness policy, told NPR that New York, Chicago, Boston and Denver drove about half of the recent drop. Those four cities had seen a surge of asylum seekers in their shelters during the Biden administration, and that surge has now receded. The alliance's analysis also found, according to NPR, that cities with encampment bans did worse than the national average, a direct challenge to the administration's account. One group moved the wrong way: people who have been homeless for a long time, the chronically homeless, saw a small increase even as the overall total fell. Oliva said that group needs more permanent housing, not less.

Why it matters

The argument over causes decides real money. The administration wants to overhaul several billion dollars in homelessness spending and move it toward short-term housing with required addiction and mental health treatment. Courts have blocked that shift so far. If the drop came mainly from funded housing programs and falling rents, cutting those programs risks reversing it. If it came from enforcement and shelter policy, the administration will press its case with this count in hand. Both sides are reading the same 698,425 people and drawing opposite lessons, and the detailed HUD report, when it lands, is where the argument gets tested city by city.

What happens next

HUD's full report will show which states and which groups drove the decline, including unsheltered and chronic homelessness. Congress will fight over the spending overhaul with these numbers on the table. And the next count, in January, will show whether a second and third year of decline is a trend or a one-year step down from a record high.