Housing & Real Estate Data retrieved 2026-07-16
People in city shelters
The nightly count of people sleeping in the main city shelter system, averaged over each year.
85,651
people in DHS shelters on an average night of 2025
The peak was 2024, at 87,105 a night. In 2014 the average was 54,488; the low point was 2021, at 47,967.
The numbers behind this chart
| Year | People sleeping in DHS shelters, average night |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 54,488 |
| 2015 | 57,223 |
| 2016 | 58,781 |
| 2017 | 59,475 |
| 2018 | 60,023 |
| 2019 | 59,505 |
| 2020 | 56,043 |
| 2021 | 47,967 |
| 2022 | 51,857 |
| 2023 | 80,049 |
| 2024 | 87,105 |
| 2025 | 85,651 |
The key years
What this counts
The number of people who slept in a Department of Homeless Services shelter on an average night of the year: single adults and families, adults and children, from the nightly census DHS publishes as its Daily Report. The city splits the data into two files at 2021; this page joins them.
What it does not say
- The DHS system only. People in the humanitarian centers the city ran outside DHS for asylum seekers, in shelters run by other agencies (HPD, HRA, DYCD), and anyone sleeping unsheltered are not in this count, so the city's true homeless population is larger.
- It counts people per night, not unique people per year: far more people pass through shelter in a year than sleep there on any one night.
- A few nights are missing from the published files in some years; the average is over the nights DHS reported (at least 300 in every charted year).
The questions New Yorkers actually ask
How many people are homeless in NYC?
On an average night of 2025, 85,651 people slept in the main city shelter system. That is the DHS census only; people in other agencies' shelters and anyone unsheltered are on top of it.
When did the NYC shelter population peak?
In 2024, when the DHS census averaged 87,105 people a night, up from 51,857 in 2022 as asylum-seeker arrivals filled the system.
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