California and New York have the highest homeless counts, with hotspots in NYC, Boston, Chicago, LA, and San Francisco. Try splitting by county or switching to map layout to see these areas of higher concentration!

The vast majority of homeless have to deal with precipitation in some level of intensity. A relatively small portion live in areas that receive huge amounts of rain. Try switching to map layout to see these areas!

Most homeless live in areas where the maximum annual temperature is between 75* and 85*F.

A far greater number of homeless people are found in counties that are more liberal-leaning. Positive numbers in this chart mean more votes for Obama in 2012, while negative numbers represent more votes for Romney. Half of all homeless people live in counties Obama won by more than 18 points.

As minimum annual temp decreases, more homeless are seeking shelters in winter. More beds are available in areas with lower winter temperatures.

In absolute terms, a surprisingly high number of homeless people can be found in areas with harsh winter conditions. However, when we look by region, we see greater concentrations in relatively warmer counties.

There is a higher proportion of emergency shelters is in the Northeast (nearly half), while the Southwest offers more permanent supportive housing. The Northwest is testing the highest proportion of rapid re-housing projects.

The highest numbers of homeless families are in the Northeast, but elsewhere the majority is individuals. Try switching to the Circle Pack layout, grouped by Region to see these proportions in more detail.

The most homeless children live in the Southwest region (1,900), followed by the Southeast (1,320). However, if you switch to the Circle Pack layout, you'll see that homeless children are strongly in the minority compared to adults!

Surprisingly, higher levels of homelessness occur in areas of higher GDP -- one might expect the opposite, that relatively wealthy areas are better able to take care of those in need. However, this shows the large gap between the have's and have-not's.

Surprisingly, most homeless live in areas where unemployment is less than 5%.

The largest proportion of the chronically homeless live in the Southwest and the Southeast (warmer regions).

More homeless live in areas that have a shortage of dental health providers, followed closely by a shortage of primary health care providers. However, in areas that have no shortages, the concentration of homeless (compared to the overall population of that area) is higher.

The majority of homeless live in areas with no VA medical facilities.

As you'd expect, colder regions (shown here as a mix of blue / purple) have far fewer unsheltered people - however these populations are likely to have the highest need of shelter. Coloring by "Sheltered vs Unsheltered" and clicking the Map layout will let you see where these folks are distributed in those regions.

The Northeast has the highest population of homeless families. If you color by Bed Types, you can see that the Northeast also has the highest proportion of emergency shelter beds -- which may not be best-suited for families, in comparison to housing types such as rapid re-housing or transitional housing.