Report: New Jersey’s Homeless Population Down 50 Percent Since 2007

A homeless camp at 16th and Vine. | Photo by Liz Spikol, 2014.

Homelessness in New Jersey has dropped by almost 50 percent over the last nine years, according to a report by the federal government.

About 3,500 fewer people are experiencing homelessness in the state than in 2007, says the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Chronic homelessness — or people who are likely to remain homeless for more than one year — reportedly dropped by 72 percent within the same time frame.

The study found that the Garden State was among the five states with the largest drop in the homeless population throughout the last nine years. The other four are California, Texas, Florida and Arizona.

According to the report, there are close to 9,000 people currently experiencing homelessness in New Jersey. About 84 percent of those people are living in shelters, while 16 percent are not.

The report was compiled through research in roughly 3,000 cities and counties across the country. Every year since 2007, planning agencies and volunteers have picked one night in January to analyze the number of people living on the street, in shelters or in housing programs.

Philadelphia has the tenth largest homeless population among the country’s major cities, according to the study. Researchers found 6,112 people experiencing homelessness in the city this year. However, roughly 56 percent of those people are reportedly living in shelters, giving the city one of the lowest rates of unsheltered homeless people among major cities.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that homelessness has decreased nationwide by roughly 14 percent since 2010, when President Barack Obama initiated Opening Doors, a strategy to end homelessness.

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