June 5, 2019

Raw Data: The Homeless Rate in Big Cities

The number of homeless rose to 59,000 in Los Angeles County this year. We don’t yet have estimates for all cities, but here’s how a selection of big cities did last year. Note that these are actually the homeless rates for the counties which contain each city (i.e., Phoenix is actually Maricopa County, Chicago is Cook County, etc.):

What surprises me is the huge difference across cities. In New York and Washington DC, nearly 1 percent of the population is homeless. In Chicago the number is 0.02 percent. That’s a difference of almost 50x. What kinds of policies can possibly account for such a vast disparity? Or is it mostly a statistical artifact of how the counts are conducted in each city? Or the inevitable result of high homeless rates following high housing prices?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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