Homelessness is on the rise in Virginia
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Nearly 1,000 more Virginians were experiencing homelessness at the start of last year versus before the pandemic.
What's happening: Virginia had 7.8 people experiencing homelessness per 10,000 people overall in 2023, per a recently released federal report.
- That's up from 6.8 per 10,000 people in 2019.
Details: The annual report, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), attempts to estimate the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night — in this case, in late January 2023 — to offer a snapshot useful to policymakers, advocates, researchers and others.
- Yes, but: Some advocates believe point-in-time counts can be misleading and may drastically underestimate the true number of houseless individuals, as Axios Portland has reported.
The big picture: U.S. homelessness reached a record high in 2023, Axios' April Rubin reports, with about 653,100 people experiencing homelessness.
- Homelessness increased by about 12% nationwide between 2022 and 2023, per HUD's report.
- The 2023 figure "is the highest number of people reported as experiencing homelessness on a single night since reporting began in 2007," per HUD.
Zoom in: In the Richmond region, there were 486 people experiencing homelessness as of July — an 8.7% increase over the previous year, per the latest point-in-time count conducted by Homeward on behalf of the Greater Richmond Continuum of Care.
Between the lines: Black and Indigenous people were overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness nationwide, as has been the case in previous years.
- Black people made up just 13% of the U.S. population in 2023, but 37% of all people experiencing homelessness and 50% of those in families with children.
Of note: As the report points out, many pandemic-era social safety net programs — such as income protections and eviction moratoriums — expired throughout the year.
- Shelters, meanwhile, largely went back to full capacity after capping admittance during the pandemic.
- Both factors complicate comparisons of 2023's numbers with those from pandemic years, the report warns — another example of the pandemic muddying data collection and analysis efforts.