Basic Facts on Homelessness Across the Country

Since the beginning of the “Great Recession,” Massachusetts has lost approximately 153,000 jobs and unemployment has risen from 4.5% to 9.4%.  This job loss has been unevenly distributed, with the brunt of the effects being felt by households in the lower 30% income distribution.  Poverty has a direct correlation to a family or individual losing their housing.  

The last U.S. Census Bureau reported that 43.6 million Americans — or 14.3 percent of the population — live on less than $22,128 per year. According to its latest data, the number of poor is the same as the combined populations of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont. This is the highest number of people living in poverty in the United States since 1959, when the federal government began the measurement. Equally startling is that the majority of impoverished families do not live anywhere close to the poverty line. The average income deficit, which is the difference between income and the poverty threshold, is $9,042; this means the average poor family lives on just $13,086 per year.

With the average rent for a two bedroom apartment in the City of Boston at $2,100 a month, it is not difficult to see why so many families and individuals are becoming homeless.


Basic Facts on Homelessness in Massachusetts

• As of June 2011, there were over 3,600 families with children in Massachusetts’ Emergency Assistance (EA) shelter program. 1,498 of these families with children were being sheltered in motels. An additional 3,000 families were able to move out of shelter or avoid entering shelter with the use of short-term Flexible Fund subsidies this year.  This number does not count those families who are doubled up, living in unsafe conditions, or sleeping in their cars.
• Over the past twelve months, over 7,000 families were assisted with emergency shelter.
• A 2007 MA Department of Education report estimated that at least 9,926 school-aged children in public schools are experiencing homelessness on any given day in Massachusetts.  Of this number of school-aged children, there are about 599 identified unaccompanied, high school students experiencing homelessness. 

• The average age of a person experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts is 8 years old. 

• The number of people experiencing homelessness are continuing to rise:
• The number of individuals experiencing homeless has more than doubled since 1990. 
• On any given night in Massachusetts, the approximately 3,000 night shelter beds for individuals are usually full.
• The number of families in the Emergency Assistance shelters increased by 230% between October 2005 and October 2010.


POVERTY contributes to homelessness. The Great Recession has severely impacted very low-income households in Massachusetts:

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s September 2009 American Community Survey, the overall poverty rate in Massachusetts increased to 10.0 percent in 2008. 
•  600,000 to 650,000 people in Massachusetts lived in households that fell below the poverty threshold ($21,834 for a family of four).
• Of the 1.4 million children under age 18 in Massachusetts, approximately 163,000 were living in poverty in 2008.