Men accounted for nearly seven in ten people sleeping outside in America in 2024. The loss of cheap rooms helps explain a wider housing problem, though the gender gap is more complicated.
America once had a type of accommodation that has largely disappeared from its cities: a small room that someone with very little money could rent without paying for an entire apartment.
The room might have been in an old hotel or a building with shared bathrooms. It offered little privacy and few comforts. But it provided a door that could be locked and an address to call home.
During the second half of the twentieth century, American cities eliminated much of this housing.
Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans have nowhere permanent to live. Men make up a majority of those counted as homeless, and an even larger share of those sleeping outside.
I began looking into the American figures after writing about male homelessness in Germany. The numbers suggested a similar pattern, but America’s housing history raised another question.
What happens to a man with very little money when even the cheapest room is no longer available?
Nearly seven in ten people sleeping outside were male
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 745,652 people experienced homelessness on one night in January 2025. Of these, 266,320 were unsheltered.
The national total was 3.3% lower than in January 2024.
For a detailed gender comparison, HUD’s 2024 report provides a useful starting point.
That year, 459,568 men and boys were counted as homeless, representing 59.6% of the total. Among people sleeping outside or in places not intended for habitation, 184,888 were male.
Men and boys accounted for 67.4% of the unsheltered population.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness offers another way of understanding the difference. In 2024, approximately 28 of every 10,000 men experienced homelessness, compared with 18 of every 10,000 women.
Those figures show a substantial gender disparity. They do not explain its causes.
They also should not obscure another finding: homelessness among women was increasing faster than among men in 2024.
These are one-night estimates. They do not count every American who loses accommodation during the year, and some forms of temporary or informal housing insecurity remain outside the figures.
Still, the high proportion of men sleeping outside deserves attention.
America destroyed much of its cheapest housing
The Pew Charitable Trusts published an investigation in July 2025 into the decline of single-room occupancy housing, commonly known as SROs.
For much of the twentieth century, these buildings provided inexpensive accommodation in cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
Residents typically rented individual rooms and shared bathrooms or kitchens.
According to Pew, some rooms historically cost the equivalent of just $100 to $300 a month in 2025 dollars.
That made them accessible to people who could not afford conventional apartments.
From the 1950s onward, many cities introduced zoning restrictions, building regulations and redevelopment policies that discouraged or prohibited SRO accommodation.
Some buildings were demolished. Others were converted into hotels or more expensive apartments.
Pew cites historical research estimating that approximately one million residential hotel rooms were destroyed or converted between 1970 and 1980.
New York City prohibited the construction of new SRO buildings in 1955. Other cities adopted policies that substantially reduced their stock of inexpensive rooms.
The result was a shrinking supply of accommodation for people at the bottom of the rental market.
Pew also documents another important change.
America had approximately 6.9 million single-person households in 1960. By 2023, that number had grown to 38 million.
The country gained millions of people living alone while losing a form of housing designed for those who needed little space and could pay only modest rents.
That does not prove the loss of SROs caused today’s gender disparity in homelessness. Women also depended on inexpensive rooms, and homelessness has multiple causes.
But it helps explain why low-income single adults can struggle to find accommodation they can afford.
The problem begins before someone reaches the street
One of the most revealing American studies of homelessness was conducted by the University of California, San Francisco.
Its statewide research, published in 2023, examined the circumstances of people experiencing homelessness in California.
Participants reported a median monthly household income of $960 during the six months before becoming homeless.
Nearly half had entered homelessness from arrangements in which they were neither leaseholders nor residents of institutions.
Some had been staying with relatives or friends. Others occupied accommodation without the legal protections of a conventional tenancy.
Their housing was already insecure before they became homeless.
The study also found that many participants believed financial assistance could have prevented the loss of their accommodation.
The findings come from California, not a nationally representative survey of all homeless Americans. Nor do they establish that men and women experience the same pathways into homelessness.
But they challenge the assumption that homelessness always begins with someone losing employment or developing a serious personal problem.
For some people, the immediate issue is straightforward: they cannot afford a place of their own, and the temporary arrangement keeping them housed has ended.
Why are men more likely to be unsheltered?
The gender figures raise an important question that the statistics alone cannot answer.
Household circumstances may influence where people go after losing housing. A single adult may have different options from a parent with dependent children.
Access to emergency accommodation, relationships with relatives, income insecurity and previous experiences with support services may also matter.
Yet it would be premature to claim that these factors fully explain why men account for such a large share of the unsheltered population.
Women can experience forms of hidden homelessness that are difficult to measure, including staying in unsafe relationships or moving between temporary arrangements.
Men can experience hidden homelessness too.
The important distinction is between the people counted sleeping outside and the larger population whose housing is insecure.
We need research that follows people through the process of losing accommodation rather than treating the street count as a complete explanation.
Mental illness and addiction are not the whole story
American debates about homelessness frequently focus on mental illness and substance use.
These are serious concerns. People living with such conditions may require medical treatment, sustained support and stable accommodation.
But they cannot explain every case of homelessness.
The California research shows how low incomes and insecure housing arrangements can leave people vulnerable even before other difficulties arise.
There is also a difference between a condition that contributes to someone losing housing and a condition that becomes worse after prolonged homelessness.
A person living outside may experience deteriorating physical or mental health. Someone with an existing illness may find it difficult to maintain employment or accommodation.
Effective assistance has to recognise these different circumstances.
A housing shortage cannot be treated entirely as a medical problem. Nor can healthcare needs be ignored simply because someone has been given a room.
What America’s homeless veterans can teach us
The United States has achieved substantial reductions in homelessness among military veterans.
HUD counted 32,495 homeless veterans in January 2025, including 13,518 who were unsheltered.
That represented a reduction of approximately 56% from 2010.
The Department of Veterans Affairs reported permanently housing 51,936 veterans during fiscal year 2025.
These are different measures. The annual number of people housed should not be subtracted directly from the one-night homelessness count.
The VA’s programmes combine housing assistance with services that can include healthcare, case management and employment support.
One example is HUD-VASH, which links rental vouchers with VA supportive services.
The programmes do not eliminate every problem veterans face. Nor does their success establish that the same arrangements would work equally well for everyone.
They do demonstrate that sustained, targeted assistance can help people obtain permanent accommodation.
That raises a practical question about the wider homelessness population.
How much housing loss could be prevented if people received help before they exhausted their savings, informal accommodation and personal relationships?
Why is a cheap room so difficult to build?
The history of SRO accommodation deserves renewed attention.
A person who cannot afford an apartment may still be able to pay for a small room.
But in many cities, zoning and building rules have made it difficult to construct or operate accommodation with shared facilities.
There were reasons for some of those restrictions. Poor building conditions, overcrowding and inadequate fire protection created genuine risks.
Those concerns cannot simply be dismissed.
The question is whether cities can provide safe, inexpensive rooms without reproducing the worst conditions of the past.
Pew has examined the potential for small units and shared facilities to expand lower-cost housing options, including through the conversion of underused buildings.
Such accommodation will not suit everyone. People with disabilities, families and those requiring specialised support may have different needs.
But the conventional apartment should not be the only acceptable form of private housing.
When a person can afford a room but not an apartment, prohibiting the room does not make the apartment affordable.
It may leave that person with fewer choices.
What Germany and America have in common
In my earlier article, When Men Cannot Find a Home: The Other Side of Germany’s Housing Crisis, I examined German figures showing that men represented a majority of people accommodated because of homelessness.
The American figures show a similar broad pattern.
But the statistics measure different populations.
Germany’s administrative accommodation count does not include people sleeping outside. America’s Point-in-Time count includes both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness.
Direct comparisons therefore require caution.
The shared question is not whether men in one country have a harder life than men in another.
It is why people with limited incomes struggle to obtain basic accommodation in wealthy societies.
For single adults, the absence of inexpensive rooms can make the problem particularly difficult.
The question America should be asking
The American homelessness figures show that men are disproportionately represented among people sleeping outside.
They do not establish that women receive preferential treatment or that one gender deserves more sympathy.
They reveal a serious housing problem that needs more investigation.
America has spent decades debating homelessness while much of its cheapest accommodation has disappeared.
The history of SRO housing suggests that public policy played a role in reducing the available options. Today’s high housing costs and the circumstances documented in California show how vulnerable people can become when their income is too low to secure another place.
Mental healthcare, addiction treatment and emergency shelters remain necessary. But they cannot replace a supply of housing that people with very little money can afford.
The question I would put to American policymakers is simple.
If someone cannot afford an apartment but can afford a small room, why should finding that room be so difficult?
Sources and further reading
HUD: 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report; Pew: How States and Cities Decimated Americans’ Lowest-Cost Housing Option; UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative; VA homelessness programmes.
Related reading: Why Pakistan’s Middle Class Struggles to Buy a Home.