Homelessness Down for Third Straight Year in US

A bit more than 610,000 counted in latest survey

The number of homeless people in the U.S. declined for a third straight year, helped by sharp dropoffs in veteran and chronic homelessness, according to a government survey released Thursday.

More than 610,000 people were homeless at the time of the count, on a single night in the last week of January. That was down from 633,782, or a 4 percent drop from the previous year, according to the survey by the Housing and Urban Development Department. The study counted people in 3,000 cities and counties.

The number of homeless veterans stood at 57,849, down nearly 5,000 or 8 percent from the previous year. The number of chronically homeless people declined 7 percent to 92,593. The number of people in homeless families fell 7 percent to 222,197, according to the report.