AMERICA’S HOUSING CRISIS:

HOMELESSNESS HIT RECORD HIGHS

In 2025, the United States faces a deepening housing emergency: homelessness has reached record highs, eviction pressure remains intense, and homeownership remains out of reach for many. Despite increased housing production, affordability remains elusive for much of the population, highlighting critical failures in federal and local housing responses.

The latest HUD Point-in-Time survey, released in January 2024, counted approximately 771,000 individuals experiencing homelessness on a single night—an 18 percent increase from the previous year. Among them were nearly 150,000 children, a 33 percent rise, and unaccompanied youth increased by 10 percent. Chronic homelessness hit record levels, with over 150,000 individuals facing long-term displacement. Though veteran homelessness dropped by 8 percent, the overall trend is stark: homelessness has surged across virtually all groups.

At the same time, housing insecurity among renters remains alarmingly high. As of early 2025, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey estimates that more than 10 million households are behind on rent or mortgage payments, including 4.5 million at least 90 days past due. Additionally, 13.2 percent of renters report being unable to pay rent on time. Eviction filings in many major metro areas have also climbed past pre-pandemic levels.

The supply-side response also remains deeply flawed. While policymakers continue to promote new housing construction as the primary solution, the country is now facing a paradox: a record surplus of nearly 490,000 homes on the market—the highest seller surplus in years—alongside a worsening affordability crisis with sellers outnumbering buyers by 34%. Despite this excess, millions of Americans still cannot access housing, as most new units are priced far beyond the reach of low- and middle-income households. Meanwhile, the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2025 Gap Report finds a nationwide shortage of 7.3 million affordable rental homes for extremely low-income renters. This stark disconnect between market availability and actual affordability reveals a systemic failure in housing policy: supply alone cannot resolve a crisis when what is being built remains economically inaccessible to those who need it most.

On the public housing front, a NAHRO 360° report (July 2024) indicates that roughly 6 percent of public housing agencies operate in chronic financial peril, facing significant deferred maintenance burdens. Specifically, the national public housing repair backlog still hovers near $90 billion (Page 10), posing a serious risk to habitability and unit preservation across the country.

In New York City, the crisis is particularly acute. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) alone faces a staggering $80 billion capital need across its 335 public housing developments—home to more than 500,000 residents. Decades of underfunding and mismanagement have led to persistent problems, including collapsing ceilings, malfunctioning elevators, heating outages, and mold infestations. Without a massive infusion of funding, these developments risk falling into permanent disrepair or demolition.

Compounding these challenges is a massive federal building maintenance crisis. A 2025 General Accounting Office (GAO) High‑Risk Report shows that the combined Department of Defense and civilian agencies’ deferred maintenance backlog skyrocketed from $171 billion in FY 2017 to $370 billion in FY 2024. Meanwhile, the GSA alone identified $17 billion in unfunded repairs as of March 2025. Such neglect undermines both infrastructure and communities, with deteriorating public assets requiring costlier remediation or even demolition.

One key structural barrier to affordable housing is the Faircloth Amendment, which caps the number of public housing units that can be built by local authorities to the levels recorded in 1999. As a result, even if cities have the funding and need to add new public housing, they are legally blocked from doing so without first demolishing older units. This has crippled efforts to expand deeply affordable housing, particularly in high-need urban areas.

These interlocking failures—escalating homelessness, lingering housing insecurity, public housing decay, and neglect of federal building stock display a national policy vacuum. Legislation still caps public housing growth, while pandemic-era rental relief remains vastly underutilized. The result is a system that builds but cannot ensure habitable, affordable, or enduring housing. With homelessness and eviction risks climbing and essential infrastructure crumbling, comprehensive federal structural reforms are urgently needed.

Related Articles:

2025 Homelessness Report (Self)

Eviction Tracking System (The Eviction Lab)

The United States Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 (Global Property Guide, 5-30-25)

GAO Spotlights Deferred Maintenance in Federal Buildings (Facilitiesnet, 5-12-25)

Federal Buildings Need $370 Billion of Repairs (Real Clear Investigations, 3-19-25)

The Housing and Homelessness Issues We’re Watching in 2025 (Next City, 1-9-25)

HUD Releases 2024 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1-13-25)

US saw dramatic rise in homelessness at start of 2024, housing agency says (The Guardian, 12-27-24)

Record Homelessness Amid Ongoing Affordability Crisis (Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2-12-24)

New York City’s Public Housing System Now Needs Almost $80 Billion (The New York Times, 7-12-23)

The Supreme Court Will Allow Evictions To Resume. It Could Affect Millions Of Tenants (NPR, 8-26-21)