The number of homeless in Chautauqua County has more than doubled over the past two years – the fourth-largest increase across New York state.

Thomas DiNapoli, state comptroller, released a report this week stating the number of homeless increased 103% in Chautauqua County from 2022 to 2024. The state Continuum of Care count of homeless in Chautauqua County in 2024 was 219 people, a 103% increase from 2022. The number of homeless children under the age of 18 increased 141% in the county from 2022 to 2024 while the number of homeless people in families increased 150%. The increase in the number of homeless was the fourth-largest in the state, according to DiNapoli’s analysis, while the increase in the number of homeless children was the ninth-largest.

“Homelessness in New York state has grown sharply, more than doubling between January 2022 and January 2024,” said DiNapoli. “Homelessness grew by 53.1% from January 2023 to January 2024, more than four times the rest of the nation. The large spike was driven by New York City and the influx of asylum seekers, but the rest of the state also had double- and triple-digit rate increases, led by Glens Falls, Saratoga and the surrounding counties.”

Additionally, DiNapoli said that the state leads the nation in the sheer number of homeless children. The number of homeless children increased from 20,299 in 2022 to 50,773 in 2024. Almost one in three of New York’s homeless are children, one of the highest shares in the nation.

DiNapoli explained that the federal government reported that in 2024, the largest number of unhoused and homeless individuals were reported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) citing numerous causes.

“HUD found homelessness reached a new peak with 771,480 people nationwide experiencing homelessness in 2024. There were more than 158,000 homeless New Yorkers in 2024 – about one in five of the nation’s homeless. New York’s rate of homelessness, at about 8 per 1,000 people, was higher than all states except Hawaii and the District of Columbia. According to HUD, homelessness in New York increased because of eviction proceedings, lack of affordable housing, increased rents, and the influx of asylum seekers, among other factors,” he said in the press statement.

Homelessness decreased in New York between 2020 and 2022, but since 2022 and the end of pandemic eviction moratoriums, homelessness has increased faster in New York state than in the rest of the nation, more than doubling between 2022 and 2024 compared to only 20.7% growth in the rest of the nation. Only Illinois had a higher increase at 180%.

People who were homeless were disproportionately Hispanic or Black, and 10% suffered from severe mental illness or chronic substance abuse.

New York state is second to California in the number of permanent supportive housing units (52,462 in New York. and 78,758 located in California) and permanent housing beds (21,672 in NYS vs. 26,059 in California) but lags other large states in the number of year-round beds for rapid rehousing – 4,887. California has more than 28,000, Texas has almost 11,000 and Florida officials reports it has 7,500.

However, the report is not all unwelcome news. DiNapoli said that homelessness among veterans remains low, at less than 1%. The state also had among the lowest shares of senior homelessness (2.5%) and chronically homeless (3.6%) among other states.

DiNapoli said more needs to be done to keep people in their homes and provide housing assistance, particularly to families with children. The state should carefully monitor and enhance reporting on the effectiveness of current programs and determine where additional resources may be needed, particularly for expanding rental assistance, and continue funding legal representation for low-income households facing eviction.

“New York has long had a housing affordability crisis, and more families are running out of options and ending up on the street or in shelters,” DiNapoli said. “Many of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that came to New York had no place to stay and drove up spending and a large portion of the growth of the homeless population. But let’s be clear, this isn’t just a New York City problem, it is impacting communities all over the state. New York needs to examine how it’s using current housing resources while taking more action to address this urgent situation.”

The homeless receiving shelter at the UCAN City Mission in Jamestown didn’t have to leave the shelter during this week’s cold snap.

The UCAN City Mission has a policy which states that all guests are required to leave the mission from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday to attend mandatory counseling sessions, county Social Service Department mandated appointments, apartment/house hunting meetings and other agenda created items designed to get the guest on his feet and self-sustainable, said Katricia Nutting, a caseworker at the mission.

“When the temperature drops below zero degrees, we allow our guests to stay indoors during the daylight hours. Unless the guest has appointments, then, we make them leave for those only,” Nutting said. “While we do allow them to stay in the shelter, we try to provide positive, educational programming, like budgeting classes and outside agency presentations, like the Goodskills program from the GoodWill organization.”

A call was placed to Recovery Options Made Easy’s (ROME) Code-Blue Shelter in Jamestown, for comment regarding a potential change in housing hours pertaining to the drop in temperature which went unanswered, and no voice message was able to be left.