‘Big Homeless’ Grows Richer While America’s Homelessness Problem Worsens

America spends billions of dollars each year trying to address homelessness, yet the problem continues to grow. The five states with the highest homelessness rates offer a troubling look at what happens when public policy focuses more on managing homelessness than ending it.

Although geographically distant, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and California share expensive homelessness systems embarrassingly short on positive results for the taxpayers funding them or for the homeless populations they are ostensibly designed to serve. Even more disturbing, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — states with huge homelessness services budgets and politicians who publicly proclaim deep concern for the homeless — have seen their homeless populations grow just as compensation for homelessness executives has climbed.