That figure comes from the Point-in-Time (PIT), HUD’s traditional method for estimating homelessness. It only counts people staying in a shelter or visibly on the street. The PIT is limited because it leaves out many groups, like people who are doubled up with friends or family. Additionally, it’s just a snapshot from one night each year, usually a cold night in January.

This timeline shows the total estimate over the last 10 years and things that may have impacted it.

The causes of homelessness and the policies impacting it are complex and interact in complicated ways. We focus mostly on policy here because policy is made by people and can be changed by people. It is important to note that although we have tried to be comprehensive in this report, there are factors that we may not have fully addressed.

We think there are two main reasons behind the decrease. First, COVID relief funds provided temporary support that helped people stay housed, but those resources weren’t permanent, so this trend may reverse. Second, rising costs in Chicago have pushed many residents to leave the city, particularly low-income Black Chicagoans, which lowers the local count but doesn’t necessarily mean fewer people are experiencing homelessness overall. 

This decrease does indicate that increases in resources directed at housing services, such as those due to COVID and homelessness services based in Housing First have the power to help end homelessness. Unfortunately, under the Trump administration the Department of Housing and Urban Development attempted to reduce funding to both homelessness services and Housing First policies. These changes may lead to a loss of any progress that has been made in ending and preventing homelessness.

It’s not that simple. Many people experiencing homelessness are already employed, but wages often aren’t enough to cover the high cost of rent. For those who are unemployed,  homelessness and unemployment reinforce each other, making it harder to get either stable work or housing. These barriers are even greater for Black people and other communities of color because of systemic discrimination in both the labor and housing markets. 

Many people do, but those situations are often unstable or unsafe, and not everyone has a social network that can offer housing. Even when someone does have a temporary place to stay, doubling up can disqualify them from many housing services. So, while it may seem like a solution, doubling up is often dangerous, impractical, and still a form of homelessness. 

Policy has the power to both prevent and end homelessness, but only if it is comprehensive, accessible, and ensures adequate affordable housing for all. Effective policy must also confront the discriminatory root causes of homelessness, including racism, homophobia, and ableism. This can be achieved by not only allocating more funding to homelessness policies, but also by ensuring that resources are efficient, low-barrier, and flexible.  

Proven approaches like the “Housing First” model are now being dismantled by the Trump administration, replaced with new policy guided by executive orders that will criminalize and worsen homelessness. Homelessness persists not because it is inevitable or unsolvable, but because of harmful policies like those of the Trump administration. 

Blaming individuals for their own poverty distracts attention from broken housing markets and underfunded support programs while overlooking proven solutions like Housing First and accessible housing policies, which have effectively reduced homelessness. Punishing people for experiencing homelessness does not solve homelessness, it simply hides homelessness and makes it harder for people to escape. 

Everyone experiencing homelessness deserves access to immediate stable housing. 

Effective policy can make this a reality.

To count people experiencing street and shelter homelessness throughout the year, CCH asked for a count of everyone who accesses certain types of services recorded in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines homelessness as people living in places not meant for habitation, emergency shelters, or transitional housing. The HMIS data includes all people served, anytime during the specified time period, by one or more of these project types: Emergency Shelter, Street Outreach, Safe Haven, Transitional Housing, and Coordinated Entry.

In addition, if a person can be identified as having doubled up in the past year, that person is excluded from the HMIS data. While this report refers to all HMIS data as “street and shelter homeless,” some people enrolled in the Transitional Housing and Coordinated Entry project types meet other categories of homelessness, if those people were unable to be excluded from the HMIS data. 

The data also excludes people who were served exclusively by enrollment in a Rapid Re-Housing program. Although temporary, Rapid Re-Housing programs are considered permanent housing by HUD and by the Chicago Continuum of Care. These estimates do not include people who are experiencing street-based homelessness but have not used homeless services. It also does not include people who are homeless but may not want anyone to know, like those who do sex work and cannot safely report their income. This does not include people who were in jail the entire year and were experiencing homelessness before they entered the carceral system. Finally, people who were in healthcare institutions the entire year are also not included. 

For our analysis “temporarily staying with others” includes poor individuals and families who fall outside of the conventional household composition and cannot afford to live in housing of their own or formally contribute to housing costs. For the purposes of this estimate, individuals who meet the following conditions are considered homeless:

It’s important to recognize that we, the people of the United States of America, Illinois, and Chicago are policymakers, and we do have the power to make change. Here are some specific things you can do: