Geography of Homelessness, Part 1: Defining the Spectrum

Date: 16 Jul 2009

Author: National Alliance to End Homelessness

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Data on homelessness are reported at an administrative geography unit called a Continuum of Care (CoC) through which federal homelessness funding is awarded. CoCs range widely from singular cities to entire states. This heterogeneity makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what fraction of the homeless population is located in rural or urban areas.  In 2007, in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, there were 457 CoCs. In order to analyze homelessness by geographic community type, we categorized each of the CoCs based on its urban or rural constitution into one of five categories – rural, mostly rural, urban-rural mix, mostly urban, and urban. The map in figure 1 shows the 457 CoCs and the geographic category to which they belong.  As previously stated, CoCs are often large geographic areas made up of a combination of rural and urban counties.  This analysis used the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) definitions of “urban county” and “rural county” which are a composite of the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget definitions.[i]  The definitions of each category are as follows:

• “Urban” CoCs are made up of singular cities, urban counties, or regions made up entirely of urban counties.
• A CoC is considered “Rural” if it is a singular rural county or a group of counties that is almost entirely rural in composition.
• “Mostly Urban” CoCs are those in which 80 percent or more of the counties are urban and/or more than 80 percent of the general population resides in the urban areas of the CoC.
• CoCs were considered “Mostly Rural” if more than 80 percent of the counties were rural and/or more than 80 percent of the general population resides in the rural parts of the CoC.
• "Urban-Rural Mix" CoCs are regional CoCs that are not sufficiently urban to be classified as mostly urban and not sufficiently rural to be considered mostly rural.

 

The distribution of the estimated 671,859 people experiencing homelessness in the United States is overwhelmingly urban in orientation. As shown in figure 2, almost 77 percent of people experiencing homelessness were counted in urban CoCs. Together, Urban and Mostly Urban CoCs account for over 82 percent of all people experiencing homelessness. Conversely, the number of people experiencing homelessness who were counted in Rural or Mostly Rural CoCs account for only 7 percent of the total number of homeless people in the United States. The share of the total homeless population counted within the 457 CoCs is broken down by category and illustrated in the chart in figure 2. Click here for an Interactive Map with homelessness by geographic type for each state.

• Do rural areas have different rates of homelessness than urban or other non-rural areas?
• Are members of subgroups (such as families, unsheltered, chronically homeless) counted in certain geography types more than others?
• To what extent are people experiencing homelessness in urban areas located in major cities as compared with other urban areas such as suburbs and small cities?
• Have certain geographic types (cities, suburbs, rural areas) experienced greater rates of change in their homeless populations?
• How do aspects of homeless assistance systems (including emergency capacity beds, transitional housing capacity, funding levels, and unmet needs) vary by geography?
• Do CoCs of the same geographic type share other economic characteristics such as poverty rates and levels of housing affordability?

Click here to go to Part 2 of Geography of Homelessness.
Click here to go to Part 3 of Geography of Homelessness.
Click here to go to Part 4 of Geography of Homelessness.