Last week the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual homelessness assessment report found more than 770,000 people experiencing homelessness across the country on a single night in January last year. That is an 18% increase from the 2023 assessment.
In New Jersey, the point-in-time count from January 2024 saw an even higher increase 24% over the prior year.
What is behind this sudden surge in homelessness?
Michael Callahan the director of the Office of Homelessness Prevention with New Jersey’s Department of Community Affairs went on to say, “Particularly across the state of New Jersey, one of the main precipitating causes of homelessness, it’s not what people would generally associate with homelessness being either mental health challenges or substance use.”
“In fact, it’s evictions and being asked to leave a shared residence. We really see that evictions and being asked to leave a shared residence are responsible for almost one in every two cases of homelessness and newly entered in this year,” Callahan said.
