Oregon leads nation in homeless count
HUD report says state has the highest proportion of homeless
Oregon has the highest proportion of homeless people in the nation, according to a new report on homelessness issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In Oregon, 0.54 percent of all residents were homeless in 2008, a higher share than any other state, according to HUD’s 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.
States with the highest proportions of homelessness tend to be on or near the West Coast. Nevada had the second-highest rate of homelessness, with 0.48 percent, followed by Hawaii at 0.47 percent, California at 0.43 percent and Washington at 0.34 percent.
The report found that 664,000 people nationally were homeless on a single night in January 2008, down about 1 percent from the prior year’s census. HUD calculated there were nearly 1.3 million homeless adults during the year.
One-fifth of all the nation’s homeless were in three metro areas: Los Angeles, New York and Detroit.
One in every 66 people living in major U.S. cities used a residential homeless program during the period studied, compared to one in every 450 people living in suburban and rural areas.
However, there was a sizable increase in the number of homeless in suburban and rural areas in the past year. In the 2007 study, 23 percent of documented homeless people were staying in suburban and rural areas. In 2008, those areas accounted for 32 percent of the homeless population.
Data for the report was compiled through September 2008, just as the economic crisis was intensifying.