Geographic decomposition

Rate by density

Major-city, other-urban, suburban, rural breakdown by state

After removing major cities, do rural areas in your state really have lower rates, or do they just have less population? This dashboard splits each state's CoCs by HUD's density category and shows the combined rate per category. National pattern: Major City CoCs run roughly 4× higher than rural ones, but state-level patterns vary.

Method: Per-state aggregation by HUD CoC category (Major City / Other Urban / Suburban / Rural) Sources: HUD PIT counts · UCSF BHHI population data · HUD CoC categories Updated: May 2026

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Cite this dataset

Stephens, G. (2026). Homelessness rates by population density category. Gaither Research. https://gaitherresearch.org/research/density

Stephens, and Gaither. 2026. "Homelessness rates by population density category." Gaither Research. https://gaitherresearch.org/research/density.

Stephens, Gaither. "Homelessness rates by population density category." Gaither Research, 2026, https://gaitherresearch.org/research/density.

@misc{stephens2026homelessness,
  author = {Stephens, Gaither},
  title  = {Homelessness rates by population density category},
  year   = {2026},
  publisher = {Gaither Research},
  url    = {https://gaitherresearch.org/research/density},
  orcid  = {0009-0002-7543-7365},
  urldate = {2026-05-01}
}

Author ORCID iD: 0009-0002-7543-7365