A surge of migrants entering the country and the United States’s housing affordability problem has fueled the country’s highest number of homeless people on record in 2024.

A report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development revealed more than 770,000 people experienced homelessness on a night in January 2024, an 18% increase from 2023 and the largest increase since 2007 (excluding 2021-2022 when the agency didn’t conduct a report due to the COVID-19 pandemic).