Do Top US Cities for Homelessness Have Democrat Mayors ?

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A nextbigfuture reader had a comment about which US cities had the most homelessness and whether the mayor is democrat or republican.

I have used US Housing and Urban Development statistics and the wikipedia entries for each city for their mayor and party affiliation.

Texas’ homeless population shrunk by nearly a third over the past decade, while California’s grew by 43%, according to the federally mandated point-in-time count. And in the Golden State, 439 people are homeless for every 100,000 residents – compared to 81 in the Lone Star State.

California Governor Gavin Newsom was Mayor of San Francisco in 2008. He promised to eliminate homelessness within ten years. This did not happen.

Ballotpedia has a list of the mayors of the 100 largest cities in the USA. 27 are Republican, 63 are Democrat, 8 are independent and 2 are unknown.

The top 15 cities with the most homeless are all democrat run cities. There are three Republican and Independent mayor cities in the top 15 overall population. Seattle, San Jose and other cities with Democrat mayors are far higher on the homeless cities than their population.

New York City had a Republican Mayor with Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001) and Bloomberg (2002-2013, became Independent).

NYC overall population increased 1990-2001 and then was bit down to flat to 2012 and then has gone down.

Unsheltered homelessness refers to situations in which individuals are not regularly accessing shel- ters or transitional housing programs and are instead often sleeping in encampments, under underpasses, in their vehicles, or other locations not meant for human habitation. California also had the highest rate of unsheltered people at 70.4% (113,660 were unsheltered). More than half of all unsheltered people in the country were in California (51%).

36 thoughts on “Do Top US Cities for Homelessness Have Democrat Mayors ?”

  1. There are only 580,000 homeless people in a nation of more than 333 million people. So its rather astonishing that we can provide enough rooms to accommodate such a relatively small number of people in the US.

    Of course, during an affordable housing crisis, over populated cities would probably be the most difficult places to provide housing for individuals who are too mentally ill or drug or alcohol addicted to be employable. But there is plenty of empty land outside of the towns, cities, and suburbs to provide motel-like housing for such a small population.

    Unfortunately, the radical left wants homeless populations to be accommodated on the city streets in order to demonstrate– the failure of capitalism. And politicians tend to fear and to appease the most vigilant voices.

  2. Replace the 16th Amendment with a single tax on liquidation value of net assets and send the revenue out to all military aged male citizens evenly to replace the government.

  4. Maybe its time to bring back “mental institutions” (for a lack of a MUCH better word) but this time the right way. Really think about the re-do of that…properly. No shame, different levels/stages of rehab and a good percentage re-entering society. I thinks its now needed.

  5. Singapore? 80% of the population lives in heavily subsidized government built housing. They have a stronger social safety net than the U.S. If the city of San Francisco were to create a government agency that built 20,000 – 25,000 subsidized low cost apartments every year just like the Housing and Development Board of Singapore does every year and the State of California were to grant rent and house purchasing subsidies for 80% of San Franciscans, just like they do in Singapore, I am pretty sure we wouldn’t have much of a homelessness problem in the city! If a California ballot initiative were to come about offering those type of subsidies for San Franciscians, Los Angelinos and the like, could we count on your vote Brian?

    • What you are missing is Singapore has total control of its borders, San Francisco does not. The more they sweeten the deal, the more people would move there to take advantage of it.

  6. Do cities with Republican mayors simply do a better job of quashing “homelessness” by underfunding homeless counts, privatizing or defunding support services for the homeless, not accepting federal monies for healthcare that keeps the poorest alive, having policing policies that criminalize living while unhoused, etc.

    • What makes you ask those questions? They insinuate that you believe:

      (1) Socialized government is better at improving society than personal responsibility, private enterprise, and private charity.

      (2) That it is Republicans who have underreported homeless counts. It seems to me that it is Democratic mayors who underreport the true count of homeless people, because they know how unpopular ‘legalized camping in urban areas’ is. The I-10 fire in LA that has completely shut down a highway used by 300,000+ vehicles/day was started in a homeless encampment under a freeway. That freeway is used to deliver food to more than 1,000,000 people/month. Thankfully there are other less-efficient routes to use that will idle more ice engines in worse traffic.

  7. Might be an interesting correlation to compare the cities with highest homelessness and crime rates. Not about homeless committing crimes, but lax laws (causing increased crimes) and a hand-in-hand link with policies that help create homelessness. The theory is that democratic policies invariably make life worse for the poor, not better. Mindlessly throwing money at a problem may make the elite feel better, but it does not really help those in need or the community as a whole. … but can help “buy” votes.

  8. Almost all cities are run by Democrats. So asking if cities run by Democrats have more homeless people is redundant.

    • So of all the top cities Brian lists, 3/4 are D, 1/4 are R, so if there were no policy implications of D vs R, one would expect 3D per 1R in the “top” 25, versus the 7D : 1R actually in the “top” cities.

      And one might also expect at 3:1 ratio of cities where homelessness got worse. But of the 15 “top” 25 cities where homelessness got worse, only 1 was R, a 14D:1R ratio – twice as bad as the simple D:R ratio in those same “top” cities.

      Of the 10 where homelessness got better, 2 were R – a 4D:1R ratio, again nearly twice as good for R as D versus the D:R ratio in those same “top” cities.

      So – No – it isn’t simply that the Dems run more cities.

  9. Better to just live near the east ‘civilized’ coast and let the 4-6 months of Winter just sweep all that nonsense away. That’s why the best economies/ countries/ regions are ‘away’ from the equator – the seasonal cycle just brings out the best (and removes the worst) of society.

    • Interesting take.

      Just 1 problem: Texas barely gets cold. And it has huge metro areas. And it takes in multiple times as many ‘undocumented migrants’ as any of the other states listed here. (California used to take in more, but credit where credit is due, it has done much to shutdown the San Diego and Imperial Valley routes of ‘undocumented migrants’.

      New York City gets much colder, yet has many times as many homeless than Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, etc on a ppm basis.

      There are many, many Democratic consituents/allies who profit off of homelessness. Make homelessness unprofitable for anyone, and watch how homeless numbers dwindle.

      I do think that local, state, and federal governments should do more to fund rural treatment/ rehabilitation facilities to take in the homeless and the psychologically impaired. It would help almost everyone involved: (1) citizens in urban areas would have better mass transit cleanliness (both rail and bus platforms), (2) citizens in rural areas (who tend to be more religious and more charitable) would receive good pay for fulfilling work, and (3) the homeless would get the training and treatment they need. It wouldn’t completely solve the problem, but it could make a real difference.

      • I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying and i, of course, often like to engage in ‘simplisms’ for incendiary purposes on this entertainment blog. The US is exceptional in that it is rich/modern and spread over a wide variety of political leanings, climates, urban/ suburban centres, and is known for a highly mobile (financial as well as literal) populace-making trends difficult – but the bottom line is what ‘homelessness is’ – in a rich country, it is simply mental illness and it is anarchy – two states of being that need to be forcibly contained and dismantled. To not be able to feed yourself and shelter yourself is to simply admit that you are a danger to yourself and others – the type of infectious diseases alone that often occur is reason enough to outlaw such unsupported encampments. To allow it to fester in the most expensive, economically vital, complex, and highly-regulated portions of society is just an act of urban self-destruction and unacceptable-risk that can only empower other anarchists, redistributionists, and other such anti-establishment types to ‘eat the rich’. Discussions of the actual cost to separate and provide options for promoting ‘general re-release’ are unclear – perhaps by lack of rural sites willing to accept and support such facilities. At the end of the day: allowing the homeless just to accumulate near dense areas is just a ticking time bomb – there is truly no good, medical, psychological, political or even sentimental reason to simply ‘let them be’. They’re cancer. They’re toxic. They’re spreading. Who will pay and relocate and protect/encourage them in the meantime is likely ‘the issue’. Unreasonable to be full prisoners, unreasonable to be left alone, expensive to maintain, and very unlikely to ever be safe, productive, or useful ever again – shame that our country-wide nursing homes are not emptying out – but that may be the ‘model’.

  10. nice work these numbers!

    But the ever lasting question (over +3000 years) for who is the democracy
    nobles –> taxpaying men –> men –> adults (legal) –> adults (+illegals)?

    Far far from judging homeless people. But should homeless direct a country, do they have the time and vision to think about state/world-wide issue when your day2day survival is your 100% occupation?
    And to continue:
    Should non tax-payers allowed to vote and direct a country and its spending’s?
    Should people that never left the US direct the state on global politics or only allowed to vote on local issues?

  11. I think a more relevant analysis would be the evolution of homelessness X overall cost of housing. I feel it is not coincidence, nor a D X R thing, that California has a high homeless population AND one of the highest real estate costs in the US.

    On the other hand, the high percentage of unsheltered may indeed indicate a failure of public policy.

  13. As always Brian, your research is as impressive as ever. I really goofed on the Todd Gloria being a Republican thing. I couldn’t help but notice on your excellent graphic exhibit 1.7 ( I like ones that compare by percentage), perhaps it just anecdotal, but all the places with the lowest rates of homelessness are places you would have a much higher chance of freezing to death in the winter. I would love to see your insightful research directed at which cities, anywhere on the planet, are handling the homelessness problem right and what specific pieces of legislation they are using to such success that we can constitutionally enact here.

  14. The fact that almost all cities of any size have Democrat mayors may make it hard to arrive at significant results.

      • NY recently is about the only good A-B comparison. Too many things changed nationally to rely on it not being a spurious correlation otherwise when you’re comparing administrations decades apart. There’s just no real ‘control group’ aside from NY.

        I’m not saying you’re wrong, there are policy basis to expect this, but I chide people on trying to do statistics in the presence of strong confounding variables too often to want to be guilty of it myself.

  15. Also be interesting to see if the total nation-wide homelessness is constant?
    If one city kicks them out, do they find housing, or does the number just go up somewhere else.

    Also, I can understand unsheltered in California because the weather is nice, but Arizona? Won’t you just die from heat stroke?

    • People don’t typically die of heat stroke if they have access to adequate water, unless they’re already sickly enough to be on the verge of death. As one article on human heat resistance I read years ago, (In SciAm before they went woke.) said, “Only Englishmen and mad dogs go out in the noonday sun. The difference is the mad dogs die.”

      People are ridiculously resistant to heat so long as we can stay hydrated. It’s not even that uncomfortable once you’re used to it. Cold, on the other hand? Our tolerance for that without protective clothing is VERY limited.

      • It’s quite the opposite. An internal temperature above 107˚ is lethal, whereas there are recorded instances of people surviving with core temperatures as low as 70˚. At higher temperatures, proteins start irreversibly denaturing and death becomes imminent. Lower temperatures don’t cause the same molecular damage (above freezing) and are therefore much more survivable. A low temperature without protective clothing is much safer than a high temperature without water.

        • I’m talking about survivability of external temperatures, though, not how much of a deviation in internal temperature you can survive.

          Human thermoregulation is very effective on the high end, because we can do this thing called “sweating”, which a lot of animals frankly can’t, being optimized for surviving low rather than high temperatures. But our ability to thermoregulate at the low end is pretty limited, thanks to our lack of fur. We have to burn calories like mad, and can’t keep it up forever.

          You have to distinguish between what you can tolerate for a limited period, and what you can survive indefinitely, of course. I’ve swum in Lake Superior, at 45 degrees F, and enjoyed it, but if I’d been trapped in that water for 24 hours in a bathing suit I’d have been dead for sure.

          The literature I’ve seen suggests that unclothed humans need temperatures above 10C, 50F, for long term survival. Below that you just can’t sustain the heat output necessary to keep your body temperature up.

          At the other end, it depends on humidity. At 100% humidity, 31C, 88F, can kill you, because you can’t dump waste heat fast enough without the ability to sweat. But as humidity drops, the temperature we can take rises, and I’ve walked around in Phoenix at 48C, 120 degrees, quite comfortably, because the humidity was low.

  17. Well, that surprised exactly no one.
    You’d have to live with your head in the ground, to not know Democrats don’t know how to run a city.

  18. So I guess the conclusion is that all the homelessness caused by republican policies are forcing people to migrate to democratic areas? That is as good as any other conclusion you can draw from this silly contribution to understanding the problem.

    • But Homeless don’t have an easy means of travel, they’re more likely to stay where they are, especially in an area that provides for them.

      Then there’s high taxes & living costs in large cities that make it difficult to escape poverty.

      Silly indeed.

      polling them & doing background checks is a better idea.

      R or D mayor is a poor gauge for homelessness, especially since you can have a highly left leaning Republican mayor after X decades of democrats and has undone next to nothing of democrat policy. Or vice versa.

      If you really want to dive deep on mayoral effectiveness, you need to check policies enacted, how long were they in place & their results.

      • Texas is literally bussing migrants “shh” and homeless to sanctuary cities.

        Ask this question next:
        Is a Democrat or Republican more likely to be worried about blowback from bussing Homeless to other cities?

        • Biden and (before him Obama) are/were literally importing “shh” ‘undocumented migrants’ by the millions into Texas, both refusing to release funds to take care of them and purposely not enforcing federal law.

          I see how when Democratic mayors are forced to deal with the problem, suddenly it’s a crisis. Democrats only care about the homeless if a donor or large constituent can benefit. (Read up on how certain people and constituents profit off of the ‘housing for homeless’ movement. It’s just as bad as private prisons, which has been promoted by Republicans.)

  20. That’s not the right question. The most significant factor in homelessness increase is housing affordability. The best way to increase it is by giving more building permits inside and around the city, and this is what should be measured.

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