In its annual one-night count of the nation’s homeless back in January, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found a four-percent reduction from last year, it announced Thursday. The tally came to 610,000 nationwide, down from 633,782 in January 2012. But it’s not good news all over. Here in New York, they found a thirteen-percent increase, for a total of 64,060 people living in shelters and on the street. And in Los Angeles, the homeless population jumped 27 percent, to 53,798. Unsurprisingly, high rents corresponded directly to spikes in homelessness. But perhaps the most startling figure comes not from the homeless count at all. Per the New York Times: “The group of very poor renters who pay more than half their income in rent and are struggling to hold onto their homes has grown by 43 percent nationwide since 2007, housing officials said.”
