Homelessness drops for the fourth straight year [View all]

[Recursion]

http://www.msnbc.com/all/how-help-the-homeless

Despite a historic housing bust, the Great Recession, and a sluggish recovery, homelessness in the U.S. has dropped for the fourth straight year, falling 4% between 2012 and 2013.

There are now about 610,000 homeless people in the country, according to a new report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Since 2007, homelessness has fallen 9% nationally. The drop is even steeper among the homeless people who live in the streets, other public spaces, and their cars: the unsheltered population dropped 12% over the past year and 23% since 2007.

How has homelessness gone down at a time when ordinary Americans have been so financially distressed, losing jobs and homes to foreclosure? Experts credit both the Bush and Obama adminstrations for working to help the homeless transition more quickly to permanent housing—a major shift in federal housing policy.

“They’ve been focused a lot more getting people off the street and into housing, targeting the resources a lot better. I think that’s paying off,” says Nan Roman, executive director of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “In the past, people who were homeless living on the street were the last people to get help.”

Sheltered homeless populations have held steady (presumably at the total capacity of shelters, more or less) while unsheltered populations have dropped.