New Research Shows 60% of Historic Homelessness Increase Prompted by Immigration Policy

A new working paper offers the first systematic national analysis of the connection between rising asylum seeker populations and the dramatic increase in sheltered homelessness across the United States. Titled “Asylum Seekers and the Rise in Homelessness,” the study finds that between 2022 and 2024, approximately 60 percent of the historic 43 percent increase in the number of individuals living in homeless shelters was driven by new immigrant arrivals seeking asylum—a policy concern that has significant costs for local governments, sometimes more than $130,000 per family annually. The paper was authored by Bruce D. Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, as well as Angela Wyse, PhD’24, an assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth College, and Douglas Williams, a recent graduate of the College.

“As national and local policy confronts growing numbers of people experiencing homelessness, it is important to understand that substantially more than half of the increase comes from migration, rather than new individuals falling into poverty,” said Meyer. “New restrictions on shelter stays in cities like New York and Chicago, combined with federal immigration policy changes under the Trump administration that narrow pathways to asylum, are likely to slow the growth of sheltered homelessness in the years ahead, but there is currently significant strain on a small number of local governments and communities.”

The paper’s findings highlight a significant geographic concentration of the surge in New York City (a 77,352 person increase), Chicago (a 14,590 person increase), Massachusetts (primarily suburban Boston)(a 13,353 person increase) and metropolitan Denver (a 6,556 person increase), with these four areas accounting for three-quarters of the national increase in sheltered homelessness. These four jurisdictions experienced large inflows of asylum seekers and used emergency shelters to accommodate them.

While much of the public discourse around homelessness has emphasized housing affordability and the expiration of COVID-19 pandemic-era protections, the authors argue that these factors alone cannot account for the scale or geographic concentration of the increase. Their research finds that the recent influx of asylum seekers has created substantial fiscal and logistical burdens for a small number of local governments, with shelter costs reaching over $130,000 per family annually in some cities (an average of $137,600 per family annually in New York City, and as high as $120,000 in Massachusetts). These challenges have required shelter systems to adapt rapidly, often to serve populations with distinct service needs and legal vulnerabilities.

The authors utilized both direct data from local governments and indirect demographic-based estimation techniques to isolate the contribution of asylum seekers to homelessness trends. Their two-pronged approach yielded consistent results, reinforcing confidence in the estimate that asylum seekers were responsible for most of the two-year increase.

Despite identifying asylum seekers as the predominant driver of the increase in sheltered homelessness, the authors are careful to note that this group played a limited role in the more modest rise in unsheltered homelessness—an ongoing trend that began prior to the recent shift in immigration patterns. Approximately 40 percent of the overall rise in sheltered homelessness remains unexplained, leaving room for additional research into the complex interplay of economic, housing, and social factors that affect homelessness rates nationwide.

This latest paper builds on a broader body of work by Professor Meyer that seeks to provide more accurate, data-driven insight into some of the country’s most urgent challenges relating to poverty and inequality. His recent research has included a reexamination of poverty trends using consumption-based measures, revealing a steady decline in poverty between 2020 and 2022, even as income-based metrics showed volatility, as well as the most comprehensive assessments to date of homelessness across the United States, which underscored how even modest disruptions can lead individuals and families into homelessness.