In the U.S., on any given night, there are about 750,000 people homeless, and about 1.5m are homeless at some point in the year (nearly 325,000 of them were children). Most of that was temporary homelessness, but one in five of can be considered chronically homeless.
Who are these people? As you can see from the graph below, being black, male or middle aged makes it much more likely that you end up sleeping in the streets. Veterans and the disabled are also overrepresented:
(source)
Take a look at this graph from the NSHAPC, National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients:
(source)
In Russia, an estimated 4 million on a total population of 140 million are homeless, which is almost 3 % (source). Given the local climate it is no surprise that hundreds of people die in the streets every winter.
In England, the peak year of 2003 saw 135,590 households accepted as homeless by their local authorities. 48,510 households were accepted as homeless in 2011 (source). This isn’t every person without a home – only those accepted as unintentionally homeless by their local authority.
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