New data suggests homelessness is declining

Welcome back. Here is something promising. New data released by the National Alliance to End Homelessness show that homelessness... is on the decline. And joining me to discuss these findings is Jared Schachner. He is with the USC Price Schools Homelessness Policy Research Institute. We also have Anne Oliva. She is CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Thank you both for being with us this morning. Anne, I want to start with you. Will you kind of just bottom line this analysis to us? Does this have to do with a certain segment of the population or a certain area of the country or nationwide? Is homelessness just down? Well, homelessness is down nationwide, but Jared is really the numbers guy, so I'm going to ask him to break it down. Okay, let's go to Jared then. I'm happy to take that one. So nationally, we're seeing some encouraging news. We estimate in our analyses that homelessness has reduced by about 7% over the past year. And it's even more encouraging when you look at the veteran population. So nationally, we're seeing 8% reductions. In Chicago, those reductions are estimated to be even steeper. Oh, that's great. To what do you attribute, Jared, this decline? I'm going to hand that one to Anne. Okay, I guess I'm asking the wrong person the wrong question. Anne, go ahead. So the decline in vet in homelessness among veterans is not a one year fluke and it is not a coincidence. It's actually we've seen a 60% decline in the number of veterans experiencing homelessness since 2010. It's extraordinary and it's a big public policy win. And we attribute that to two things. The first is really good program design. That means that we provide permanent, affordable housing and services to veterans who need it. And the second is funding. We know that Congress has been funding these programs year over year at a scale that is much closer to the scale of need in terms of veterans homelessness than for any other population of people experiencing homelessness. So these are really encouraging, encouraging numbers. And if we can do it for veterans, we should be able to do it for everybody. Oh, that's a good, I was going to ask you if this is going to spill over into the non-veteran population, but you just answered it right there. Jared, you have studied veteran homelessness separately. Absolutely. Are these improvements being seen nationwide and here in Chicago? Yes, that's exactly right. So as we mentioned at the top, we're seeing a veteran population reduction when it comes to homelessness of about 8%. So that's larger than the overall homelessness reduction. And in Chicago, I really want to highlight how steep that reduction has been among veterans. We're seeing over a 20% decrease in your area. Again, underscoring not only that progress is being achieved nationally, but particularly locally. In your area, major meaningful reductions, which we're really encouraged by. And you mentioned the funding in Washington really helping this cause specifically when it comes to ending veteran homelessness. Can we dive down a little bit more? Are there specific approaches once the money is in the hands of those who are working to improve the situation is kind of on the ground? Is there a specific approach that is working? Yeah. So the approach that works for veterans actually works for everybody. And that is permanent, safe, affordable housing, coupled with the services that people want and need in order to thrive. And unfortunately, right now, But aside from the veterans budget, those are the programs that the Trump administration is trying to gut in their approach to homelessness. So what we really need is for Congress to do the right thing and to fund these programs, these important permanent housing programs. When they take up the budget in December. Okay, we are right now doing this huge campaign, Make Camo Your Cause. It's all to address the issue of veteran homelessness here at Fox Chicago. Can you, Anne, give us an idea, or maybe Jared could take this question too, either of you, but what the current numbers are when it comes to veteran homelessness? I'm happy to start and then ask Jared to chime in. We're actually at less than 30,000 veterans experiencing homelessness nationwide. That is the lowest number since we started collecting this data in 2007. So it is good news. Any single veteran that's experiencing homelessness is too many. But to get down below that 30,000 number is a big milestone for us. Go ahead, Jared. The only thing I'll add there is that this is not a fluke. This year-on-year decrease actually reflects a much longer trend. We've seen reductions of about 60% since 2010 when it comes to the veteran homeless population, so we need to continue that momentum and continue driving that number down. Jared, before we let you go, can you tell us, sir, where folks can go to find out more information about this cause? Again, I mentioned we're doing this huge campaign. Uh, this week here at Fox Chicago to try to address this problem to go to find out more about homelessness, its solutions and how people can get involved. Go to end homelessness dot org. That's the alliance's website. And if you're curious about the numbers and the analyses underlying them, you can go to end homelessness dot org slash count. It's so great to hear that there's been steady improvement on this issue. And Jared and Ann, we really appreciate you joining us from our nation's capital this Tuesday morning. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.