The potential voters everyone forgets

NEWSWEEK

Six months from now, more than 100 million Americans will cast their vote in the general election, but hundreds of thousands of people experiencing homelessness may not get the chance to exercise that right due to socioeconomic barriers.

On a single night in 2023, there were about 653,100 homeless people in the U.S., which is around 20 in every 10,000 residents, according to the 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress written by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Community Planning and Development.

It is unclear how many of those experiencing homelessness are eligible to vote and how many actually do vote. However, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, roughly one in 10 people without homes vote in a typical election year.

Data is scarce when it comes to voter eligibility and voter turnout numbers among homeless people. When Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), it said there is no federal data on such figures.

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