Illinois saw about a 116% increase in homelessness based on a January 2024 Point-in-Time Count, a report of sheltered and unsheltered individuals experiencing homelessness on a single night.
Illinois was one of 43 states, as well as the District of Columbia, to report increases in 2024. Many factors could account for the increase, including the national shortage of affordable housing and wages that aren’t keeping pace with costs of living.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, started in 2007, revealed that Illinois’ unhoused population grew from 11,947 in 2023 to 25,832 in 2024. Most of that increase, about 91% according to Fox 32 Chicago, was in Chicago.
For Housing Forward, a nonprofit organization working to end homelessness in west suburban Cook County, that increase from 2023 to 2024 was about 18%, mirroring the national average. That means nationally, more than 770,000 individuals were experiencing homelessness in January 2024, according to NPR.
The January 2025 Point-in-Time Count will be conducted in suburban Cook County on Jan. 29. Results likely won’t be available for several months.
“I think it’s going to increase again, unfortunately,” said Lynda Schueler, Housing Forward’s chief executive officer. “We’re seeing an increase in our unsheltered counts at our agency and similarly across the continuum.”
Point-in-Time Counts
The counts are conducted from about 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. on a single night in January. Small groups go out and attempt to count unsheltered individuals within a large service area, Schueler explained. There do tend to be “hot spots,” she said, such as train stations, emergency rooms or laundromats. Volunteers who conduct the counts give individuals they interact with a bag of basic necessities, Schueler said.
The counts are imperfect, however. Schueler explained it’s difficult to count every person who might be sleeping in a car or not in a congregated area, not to mention individuals who are couch surfing or lived in doubled-up situations. And the counts are only conducted on one of 365 days. That means the numbers reported and subsequent increases could be even bigger than anyone knows.
“As alarming as the 18.1% increase over the previous year’s count is, even more alarming is the continued disproportionate number of Black individuals and households that are experiencing homelessness,” Schueler said, compared to white households.
What’s causing this increase?
A significant shortage of affordable housing units and wages that don’t keep pace with the cost of living are both key contributors to the rising homelessness in the United States, Schueler pointed out.
Nationally, Schueler said affordable housing units are short by 7.5 million to 10 million units. In Illinois, there needs to be about 300,000 more of these units, she said.
And people are living paycheck to paycheck. Without competitive wages, it can be quite difficult to keep pace with the ever-growing cost of living.
Another reason for the increase could be attributed to the surge of migrants over the last two years, Schueler added. The increase can put additional pressure on homeless providers to house more individuals, leading to capacity issues in emergency bed systems.
Additionally, the loss of COVID-19 support funds has contributed to the continued increase in homelessness. During the pandemic, Schueler said, there was a significant infusion of funds keeping people in housing. But those resources aren’t there anymore.
To help diminish the increase in individuals experiencing homelessness, Schueler said increased production of affordable housing as well as increased housing density is needed. But such projects take time to get financed and zoned.
Housing Choice Vouchers from local housing authorities are also key, Schueler said. This program, commonly known as Section 8, is a federal initiative in which a family or individual typically pays 30% of their monthly income toward rent and utilities and a local housing authority pays the remainder to the property owner. Income restrictions typically apply.
“Additional rental assistance dollars are needed because that’s going to be a much quicker response to trying to get somebody from an unhoused situation to a housed situation,” she said. “That’s the most expeditious route.”
Housing Forward’s efforts
The nonprofit monitors data on the unhoused population on a regular basis, Schueler said, analyzing trends monthly. As of Jan. 9, 89 individuals were on Housing Forward’s waitlist for shelters.
The growing unhoused population and need for resources prompted Housing Forward to ask Oak Park for about $800,000 to help expand street outreach and expedite housing matches. The village board has not yet decided how or if to provide those funds, but they could help prevent bottlenecks in the system.
At the property formerly known as The Write Inn, where Housing Forward temporarily shelters individuals and families experiencing homelessness through interim housing and medical respite, the average stay is about 100 days longer than it was in 2024, Schueler said. Now it’s upwards of 270 days, she said.
“We don’t have sufficient resources to more rapidly resolve somebody’s situation,” she said.
Their goal, Schueler said, is to rehouse people in 90 days.
“But when you don’t have those housing resources at the end, those are very difficult decisions,” she said. “We don’t want somebody returning back to the streets. That doesn’t resolve anything.”
And on the federal level, Schueler said she doesn’t know what could happen. Funding could be cut and less resources could mean another spike in homelessness. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s allies have said they want to move billions in federal homelessness funding from housing to treatment for drug addiction and mental illness, according to NPR.
But those aren’t the only contributing factors to homelessness. Natural disasters, job struggles, domestic violence or loss of support systems are just a few other ways someone could come to experience homelessness.
“The entire system needs to work better together,” Schueler said. “We need to have more housing resources.”
