By ANTHONY EFFINGER/Willamette Week

Oregon finds itself near the top of another tragic list as the year ended.

Oregon had the eighth-largest population of homeless people on a given night in January 2024, according to a “point-in-time” count released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last week.

HUD counted 22,875 people experiencing homelessness in Oregon in January, up 13.6% from 20,142 a year earlier.

The seven states with more homeless people than Oregon had far larger general populations: California (187,084 homeless), New York (158,019), Washington (31,554), Florida (31,362), Massachusetts (29,360), Texas (27,987), and Illinois (25,832).

HUD’s figures confirm what many Oregonians already know: Their state is a laggard when it comes to housing its people, and that the West Coast, in general, struggles more than other regions. Oregon ranks 27th in the nation for total population. California is No. 1. Washington is 13th.

In terms of year-over-year increases, Oregon fared better. The 13.6% rise in people experiencing homelessness in January 2024 was the 17th largest of all the states. Illinois had the biggest increase, at 116.2% to 25,832 people, followed by Hawaii, 87% to 11,637, and Massachusetts, 53.4% to 29,360.

In the U.S. as a whole, 771,480 people were homeless on the January night chosen by HUD, the largest since the agency began its counts, and an 18% increase from January 2023.

The release of the HUD numbers triggered a partisan debate over whether a spike in migrants and rising rents fueled the change (the Democratic Party position) or it was an indictment of “housing first” policies that fail to take mental illness and addiction into account (as Republicans maintain).

Migration drove up the number of families in need of shelter by 39%, HUD said. In the 13 communities that reported being affected by migration, family homelessness more than doubled. In the remaining 373 communities, the rise in families experiencing homelessness was less than 8%.

Encounters with migrants at the border are at their lowest since July 2020, HUD said. “As a result, migrant arrivals to communities across the country have dropped significantly. In Chicago, for example, the migrant shelter census is down more than 60%, and in Denver, the shelter census is down nearly 100%. This fall, both cities announced an end to their migrant shelter systems.”

But Oregon never saw the upswing in migrants that other regions of the country did.

In 2024, more than 1 in every 4 people experiencing homelessness was under 18 (19%) or a young adult between the ages of 18 and 24 (8%), HUD said.

“Demographics differ depending on the type of homelessness experienced, with few children experiencing unsheltered homelessness and more middle-aged adults making up the unsheltered population,” HUD said. “People between the ages of 35 and 54 make up almost half of the total number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.”