Baltimore Sees Steep Drop in Unhoused Residents

Baltimore exceeded its goals for housing unhoused residents, according to a brief by Danielle McLean in Smart Cities Dive.

The city aimed to rehouse 1,000 households and add 1,600 new affordable housing units to the development queue last year. It “found housing for 1,443 households experiencing homelessness in 2022 and added more than 2,500 affordable housing units to its development pipeline with the help of federal funds and technical support from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city announced on Tuesday.”

The achievement is impressive for a city with a poverty rate of roughly 20 percent, McLean points out. Using a ‘housing first’ approach, the city managed to reduce the number of unhoused people by 36 percent between 2018 and 2022 and by 63 percent in the last decade.

Kyana Underwood, public information officer for the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services, said “All the Baltimore households rehoused in 2022 were placed in permanent housing, and many of them received wraparound supportive services such as substance abuse treatment.” The city is leveraging federal funding as part of the House America initiative.