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Although the total number of homeless Americans is dropping, the number of homeless families is rising, according to the 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, a yearly study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“As a nation, we appear to be doing a better job sheltering those who might otherwise be living on our streets but clearly homelessness is impacting a greater share of families with children,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

HUD’s latest report, released Wednesday, is the fifth in a series of annual reports designed to measure the scope of homelessness across the country, and the first to gauge the impact of the recession.
It finds that on a single night in 2009, at least 643,000 individuals in the U.S. were homeless, and throughout the year 1.5 million were without housing and sought shelter.

“This data is particularly important as we shift our efforts to preventing individuals and families from becoming homeless in the first place with the $1.5 billion Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program through President Obama’s Recovery Act,” said HUD Assistant Secretary Mercedes Márquez.
Family homelessness increased for the second year in a row.

“Last year we reported a 56 percent increase in suburban and rural family homelessness. This year’s report shows a continued increase, although at a much lower rate of five percent,” Márquez said.

“Now we are seeing more two-adult headed families that are in homelessness, and there is actually an increase in the rise of male-headed families that are headed into homelessness, which is not your typical situation,” she said.

Unlike individuals, who often become homeless in the winter, the number of homeless families spikes in the summer.

According to Márquez, “It has to do with the school year,” she said. “Even in a foreclosure setting you see folks trying to negotiate something until their kids are out of school. There is always a motivation for families to get their children to that milestone.”

To get by, more families are living with relatives or renting housing with two or more families in one place.
“What happens when you have a jobs loss led recession is that folks are doubling up. The level of overcrowding is now up substantially,” said Márquez.

“The issue of doubling up has many implications. You can start to relate that back to all kinds of issues. One is that children don’t tend to do as well in school,” she said.

She said doubled up families have little personal space, a lack of privacy, and daily routines and sleeping patterns are often interrupted for children, sometimes leaving them with little time to get their schoolwork done.

“Having your economic life depending on other people starts to have an impact on the overall health of families as a whole,” she said. “These are things that concern us greatly.”

A study by the Research Institute for Housing America and the Mortgage Bankers Association found a nearly five-fold increase in the rate of housing overcrowding, suggesting that many families are doubling up in response to the economic downturn. If some of these family support networks already are struggling to make ends meet, some of the doubled-up families may find their way into the homeless residential service system during 2010.

Long-term or chronic homelessness has continued a pattern of decline in the U.S. since 2006.  All of this year’s decrease occurred among the unsheltered or "street population."

“Much of the decline may be associated with the dramatic expansion of our permanent supportive housing stock, which increased by 42,000 beds since 2006,” said Márquez.

A typical sheltered homeless person is a single, middle-aged man and a member of a minority group.  Of all those who sought emergency shelter or transitional housing during 2009, the following characteristics were observed:

· 78 percent of all sheltered homeless persons are adults.

· 61 percent are male.

· 62 percent are members of a minority group.

· 38 percent are 31-to-50 years old.

· 64 percent are in one-person households.

· 38 percent have a disability.

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