Geographic decomposition

Are state rates real, or just one big city?

Comparing Major City CoCs against the rest of each state

New York's high state rate is mostly NYC. California's is everywhere. Some states look high because their major city dominates the count; others have homelessness distributed across the whole state. This dashboard separates the two.

Method: Aggregated rate comparison using HUD's Major City CoC classification Sources: HUD PIT counts · UCSF BHHI population data · HUD CoC categories Updated: May 2026

Open dashboard in full screen →

Cite this dataset

Stephens, G. (2026). City effect on state-level homelessness rates. Gaither Research. https://gaitherresearch.org/research/city-effect

Stephens, and Gaither. 2026. "City effect on state-level homelessness rates." Gaither Research. https://gaitherresearch.org/research/city-effect.

Stephens, Gaither. "City effect on state-level homelessness rates." Gaither Research, 2026, https://gaitherresearch.org/research/city-effect.

@misc{stephens2026city,
  author = {Stephens, Gaither},
  title  = {City effect on state-level homelessness rates},
  year   = {2026},
  publisher = {Gaither Research},
  url    = {https://gaitherresearch.org/research/city-effect},
  orcid  = {0009-0002-7543-7365},
  urldate = {2026-05-01}
}

Author ORCID iD: 0009-0002-7543-7365