Vulnerable Groups

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This topic page studies available data and empirical evidence on homelessness, focusing specifically on how it affects people in high-income countries. Homeless people are among the most vulnerable groups in high-income countries.

You can read our topic page on Extreme Poverty if you are interested in a broader perspective on economic deprivation and a perspective beyond high-income countries.

Homeless people in the US
What data is available?
One of the most common ways to measure homelessness is through so-called 'point-in-time' counts of people who are sleeping in shelters or on the streets. These are figures that are intended to reflect the number of people who are homeless 'on any given night'.

The main source of point-in-time estimates in the US is the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which releases the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (AHARC). They calculate 'point-in-time' estimates by counting homeless people in late January of each year.

The main underlying sources of data used to produce the figures published in the AHARC are (i) registries from shelters and (ii) counts and estimates of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons provided by care organizations, as part of their applications for government funding.

The counts from the care organizations (called 'Continuums of Care' in the US) come from active counts that are undertaken at the community level, by walking around the streets, using pre-established methodologies.1

In these figures, 'Sheltered Homelessness' refers to people who are staying in emergency shelters, transitional housing programs, or safe havens. 'Unsheltered Homelessness', on the other hand, refers to people whose primary nighttime residence is a public or private place not designated for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for people – for example, the streets, vehicles, or parks.2