The number of people sleeping on New York City streets this year ticked up slightly but remained largely flat compared to 2023, according to new official figures released on Thursday. The data shows that street homelessness is still at its highest level in at least 15 years.
Mayor Eric Adams' administration released its annual point-in-time count of street homelessness, which tallies how many New Yorkers were sleeping on the subway, parks or outdoors on a single night in January. The Homeless Outreach Population Estimate, or HOPE survey, counted 4,140 people experiencing street homelessness this year, a slight increase from last year’s count of 4,042.
The survey was conducted as the city's shelter population grew to unprecedented levels due to the arrival of new migrants and amid concerns that homelessness would grow as newly arrived migrants faced limits on how long they could stay in local shelters.
City officials attributed the consistency in the year-over-year numbers to their outreach efforts targeting homeless New Yorkers and moving 1,000 unsheltered people into permanent housing.
“Our outreach teams have made significant strides in this effort, placing 2,000 people and connecting 500 people through our subway outreach to permanent housing,” Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said in a statement.
“New York City continues to be a national leader with more than 95% of those experiencing homelessness in stable shelter settings," she added. "We know that we have more work to do to reach all those living on the street to meet our goal of having every New Yorker have a safe, stable permanent home."
But Kathleen Cash, a homeless and benefits advocate at the Safety Net Project, which focuses on low-income New Yorkers' needs, said any increase in the number of unsheltered homeless people is troubling.
“This is actually the highest the count has been since it started in 2005,” she said. “It's disgraceful."
Critics have also long questioned the HOPE count's limits, since it doesn’t include people seeking overnight shelter in bank vestibules, fast food restaurants and emergency rooms. That means the survey is "a severe undercount," Cash said.
“It's done on one of the coldest nights of the year, in the middle of the winter, and homeless people know how to survive," she said. "Part of that is hiding, and hiding is important specifically because of the broken windows policing that Adams has fully committed to.” She was referring to homeless encampment sweeps that have ramped up under the mayor.
About 86,000 people are currently in shelters overseen by the city’s Department of Homeless Services, according to official data. But officials said the non-asylum-seeking population remains 7% lower than what it was before the pandemic.
DHS said Adams’ Subway Safety Plan helped connect 7,500 homeless people to shelters and the agency added 1,100 low-barrier shelter beds that are easier for people who experience street homelessness to access than traditional shelters.
“We are proud of the progress we’ve made connecting thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers to safe shelter settings and permanent housing,” Joslyn Carter, the agency's administrator, said in a statement. "This is only made possible by the countless outreach workers and frontline staff who work closely with New Yorkers experiencing homelessness every step of the way to help them stabilize their lives.”
