At the end of the year, the U.S. got some new figures on homelessness that were not encouraging.

Yes, so this is a count that takes place all around the country. Every January, it's compiled by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden talked with me about it in late December the day the report came out.

And this year, it found 770,000 people living in shelters or

outside on streets and parks in their cars. That is up 18% from last year. 18% and it is the largest

number since they started doing this report in 2007. Yes. It is, I should also note, an undercount.

It's widely considered an undercount. This is a snapshot, one night in each place. It does not

include people who may be crowding in with family or friends. So the bad news is that the number of

unhoused people in the U.S. is at a record high. Or at least it was when the government did the count last January.

The good news is there's reason to believe those numbers have gone down since that national

census.

In lots of big cities, people who work with homeless populations say things are improving.

Until recently, Jeff Olivet led the government's interagency council on homelessness.

We've seen either stabilizing of the numbers or reduction of the numbers in some pretty unlikely places like Phoenix and Los Angeles and Dallas.

And to me, what that says is if we keep investing the right way in getting people off the streets and into housing as quickly as

possible, we really can see those numbers go down. One major policy change last year came from

the Supreme Court, and advocates for homeless people were not happy about it. The justices issued a

ruling saying it's okay to punish people for sleeping outside, even if they have nowhere else to go. Opponents

of the ruling say it basically criminalizes poverty. Supporters say it'll help push people

towards homeless services, drug treatment programs, and other resources. Since the Supreme Court

decided that case, more than hundred places around the country have banned

people from sleeping outside, like California's San Joaquin County east of San Francisco, where

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