{"id":340618,"date":"2026-05-31T21:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T21:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/340618\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T21:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T21:00:12","slug":"california-reports-one-of-largest-drops-in-homelessness-in-past-year-hud-reports-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/340618\/","title":{"rendered":"California reports one of largest drops in homelessness in past year, Hud reports | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

California<\/a> reported one of the largest decreases in homelessness<\/a> over the past year, according to a new report<\/a> from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud).<\/p>\n

The Golden state recorded a total unhoused population of 181,934 in 2025 \u2013 an almost 3% decrease since the year prior, placing it among the five states with the largest decreases from 2024. However, more significant drops were recorded in Illinois (44%), Hawaii (41%), Florida (11%) and New York (8%).<\/p>\n

The new data signals at least some success on the part of Gavin Newsom<\/a>, the California governor who has intensified<\/a> his<\/a> crackdown<\/a> on homelessness over the past year. In May 2025 he announced a new model ordinance<\/a> for cities and counties to address \u201cpersistent\u201d homeless encampments, as well as $3.3bn in voter-approved funding to increase housing and drug treatment programs.<\/p>\n

California, along with New York, had the largest population of unsheltered people recorded in 2025. Homelessness has been a key issue<\/a> in this year\u2019s<\/a> gubernatorial race<\/a>, as well as in the Los Angeles<\/a> mayoral<\/a> race<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The data also showed that the national homeless population decreased for the first time since 2016, coming down 3% from 2024<\/a>. The Trump administration<\/a> attempted to downplay the small one-year decrease, instead highlighting the fact that homelessness has increased 27% since 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data is clear that the status quo of \u2018housing first\u2019 has failed to meaningfully reduce homelessness, resulting in crisis levels of people living on the streets,\u201d Scott Turner, the Hud secretary, said in a press release<\/a>. \u201cHUD is restoring its programs to advance recovery and self-sufficiency and to ensure that taxpayer-funded benefits serve American families.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the administration attempted to downplay the drop in homelessness, it also sought to connect the success to its immigration policies, stating that the 2025 decrease was \u201cattributable to decreases in Sanctuary Cities\u201d.<\/p>\n

The data comes from the federally mandated homeless point-in-time count, which tallies people sleeping in shelters and outside on a given day. On a single night in January 2025, there were 745,652 homeless persons in the United States.<\/p>\n

While anti-homelessness advocates cited the decrease in homelessness as a \u201crelief\u201d, they also pointed out that the Trump administration\u2019s policies may erode the progress<\/a> that has been made.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of the progress reflected in the 2025 PIT Count is due to targeted housing and service resources that were available in 2024 to rehouse people, including the highly successful Emergency Housing Voucher program, and new funds to address rural and unsheltered homelessness,\u201d Ann Oliva, the CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the Trump Administration has largely deprioritized these tools and worked to dismantle the very systems that drove these reductions.\u201d Oliva pointed to the administration\u2019s proposed cuts<\/a> to permanent housing programs<\/a>, which the organization found<\/a> would \u201cforce at least 170,000 formerly homeless people back on the streets\u201d.<\/p>\n

The government has also mandated treatment<\/a> for recipients of federal housing vouchers, and penalized jurisdictions that employed harm-reduction strategies such as safe consumption sites. In April 2026, Hud introduced a proposed rule<\/a> that would require federally funded shelters to house prospective tenants based on their birth sex alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California reported one of the largest decreases in homelessness over the past year, according to a new report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-340618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}