New York faced a whopping 53% spike in homelessness last year — marking the highest per capita rate in the nation — thanks largely to the influx of migrants housed in Big Apple shelters, according to the feds.
The Empire State had more than 158,000 people without a permanent roof over their head — out of more than 771,000 homeless people counted in the US in 2024, a new report by the US Department of Housing and Development found.
Clearing eviction backlogs dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic, low affordable housing supply and sharp increase in rent prices, as well as the migrant crisis in Gotham were all cited in the report that resulted in New York having 81 people struggling with homelessness for every 10,000.
Migrants staying in emergency shelters throughout the five boroughs “accounted for almost 88% of the increase in sheltered homelessness in New York City,” the HUD report released last month states.
As of Monday, there were nearly 60,000 migrants living in city shelters, according to officials. Between Dec. 30 and this past Sunday, 400 new migrants arrived while 1,300 left city care, City Hall said.
More than 200,000 migrants have reached the city since the spring of 2022. At its peak, the city was housing nearly 70,000 migrants last spring.
Overall, there were 140,134 homeless people in the city last year, compared to 88,025 in 2023, according to Newsday, citing HUD data.
In October alone,130,438 people slept in a city shelter, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, with the not-for-profit group estimating thousands more were on the streets that month.
Other startling figures from the HUD report included a sickening 152% increase between 2007 and 2024 of homelessness in New York state.
More than 95,000 families in New York dealt with homelessness in 2024, the report found. It also tallied 3,203 unaccompanied minors who were homeless last year, a 71% increase from 2023.
The report noted that improved or increased PIT training — which refers to efforts to count people living on the streets — may have possibly factored in the increased homelessness count in New York.
The state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which oversees housing services, did not immediately reply to an email Wednesday.