HUD's 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress provides detailed information on trends in homelessness, based on data collected during one day point in time counts by HUD-funded Continuums of Care (CoC) in January 2013. Overall, the 2013 count of homeless people was 610,042, down 4% from the 2012 count and down 9% from the 2007 count. One third (35%) of those counted in 2013 were in unsheltered locations.
Despite the decline in homelessness nationwide, a number of metropolitan areas and states reported large increases between 2012 and 2013, including Massachusetts (8.7% or 1,528 persons). Five states account (CA, NY, FL, TX and MA) for over half of the nation’s homeless population and 20 states overall reported increases. However, despite having some of the highest rates of growth in homelessness, Massachusetts had one of the strongest records for sheltering its homeless. It had the second lowest rate of unsheltered families among all states (0.2% of the 12,335 persons in 5,500 homeless families) and the fourth lowest rate of unsheltered homeless overall (4.5% or 4,157 of its 19,029 persons counted). New York City had the highest homeless count (64,060) among CoCs. Links to more detailed state-level and CoC level information on counts by subpopulation over the years can also be found on HUD's website