According to data released by WA State, as well as The Center Square, WA state is not exactly doing the greatest when it comes to our homeless problem.
WA State ranks in top ten in the US
The Department of House and Urban Development, better known as HUD, has released figures showing how states fare when it comes to their numbers of homeless persons.
According to the Office of Policy Development and Research, as reported by The Center Square, we are 9th in the nation as far as having the worst homeless issues population-wise.
WA state has, according to reported government figures, as of January, 2022, 25,211 people were ‘experiencing’ homelessness, of those, just over 50 percent did not have some kind of shelter.
Oregon’s issues were even more pronounced, as they landed at 4th on the list. Here is a table of data, from the Office of Policy Development and Research via The Center Square, showing the numbers as well as the percentages of increases or decreases:
| 1 | California | 67.3 | 171,521 | 6.2 | 38.9 |
| 2 | Mississippi | 63.6 | 1,196 | 8.0 | -56.4 |
| 3 | Hawaii | 62.7 | 5,967 | -7.6 | 2.3 |
| 4 | Oregon | 61.7 | 17,959 | 22.5 | -7.9 |
| 5 | Arizona | 59.2 | 13,553 | 23.4 | -1.2 |
| 6 | Tennessee | 58.0 | 10,567 | 45.6 | 2.8 |
| 7 | Arkansas | 52.7 | 2,459 | 3.9 | -11.0 |
| 8 | Georgia | 51.8 | 10,689 | 4.4 | -46.1 |
| 9 | Washington | 50.2 | 25,211 | 10.0 | 10.2 |
WA state showed an increase of just over ten percent since 2010. The states with the lowest percentages of homeless persons? Surprisingly Idaho landed at 13th, but that was a drop of just over 14 percent, while the bottom five were Delaware, Wisconsin, New York, Main, and Vermont had the lowest.
Washington state’s jump since 2020 was a flat 10 percent.
South Dakota saw a jump of some 90 percent, while CA rose 38 percent, from the 2010 to 2022 figures.
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