Half Of Hudson County’s Homeless Live In Jersey City: Study – Patch.com

HUDSON COUNTY, NJ — Jersey City is home to half of the homeless population in Hudson County, an annual study says.

Earlier this week, Monarch Housing Associates released the 2019 “Point In Time” count for New Jersey, a massive, annual effort to see how many people are experiencing homelessness in the state.

Commissioned by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, the “NJCounts” survey is accomplished with the help of local community, government and volunteer groups. This year’s count took place on one of the coldest days of the year: Jan. 22.

Overall, 8,864 people experiencing homelessness were counted across New Jersey that day, about 5% less than last year’s tally. However, researchers said it wasn’t necessarily a “trend,” pointing out that the slight drop wasn’t seen across the board. Read the full state report and learn about its methodology.

According to researchers, 890 homeless people were counted in Hudson County on Jan. 22 – about 10% of the entire state’s population. The total came behind only Essex County, which had 2,235 homeless people (25%).

Read the full Hudson County “Point in Time” report.

The number of homeless people living in Hudson County has remained relatively constant over the past four years (see below graph).

Image: Monarch Housing Associates

Some additional highlights from the 2019 count in Hudson County include:

  • 591 people were staying in emergency shelters, 32 people were in transitional housing, and 267 people were “unsheltered”
  • There was a total of 41 identified homeless adults between 18 and 24 years old (5%), 751 adults over age 24 (84%), and 98 children under 18-years-old (11%)
  • 593 homeless persons were male (67.9%), 279 were female (32%) and one identified as transgender (0.1%)
  • 46.7% identified as Black or African-American, 31.8% as Hispanic/Latino, 20.4% as White and 1.3% as Asian
  • 51% reported having some type of disability. Among disabled persons, 47.7% reported mental health issues.

It’s important to keep in mind that the annual count is only a “snapshot” in time and doesn’t include all the homeless people in an area… just the ones counted. The true number of people in need of shelter may be about two or three times larger than the totals from Jan. 22, researchers said.

Still, the stats can be useful when trying to see if homeless relief efforts or working… or if they’re not.

“NJCounts 2019 data is critical to understanding community trends but the data only tells part of the story,” Monarch CEO Taiisa Kelly said. “We need to remember the real people behind these numbers and that housing is a right for all people.”


Learn more about posting announcements or events to your local Patch site. Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com