Greene County Office Building on Main Street in the village of Catskill. Greene County saw a 39% increase in homelessess from 2022 through 2024, according to a report from state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
Greene County Office Building on Main Street in the village of Catskill. Greene County saw a 39% increase in homelessess from 2022 through 2024, according to a report from state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
ALBANY — Columbia and Greene counties saw a 39% increase in its homeless population between 2022 and 2024, according to a report released last week by state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
Overall, homelessness across the state rose over 50% between January 2022 and January 2024, according to the report. Between January 2023 and 2024, homelessness in the state grew 53.1%, with a total of 158,019 state residents experiencing homelessness.
In Columbia County, the number of homeless individuals had stayed high since the COVID-19 pandemic, Columbia County Department of Social Services Commissioner Robert Gibson said Monday.
“Certainly post pandemic, the numbers have gotten high and stayed consistently high,” he said. “We’ve seen a significant increase since I’ve been here [in 2014], and a significant increase since prepandemic to now,”
The number of homeless people in the county at one time ranges, but Gibson estimated Monday that Columbia County had upward of 90 homeless people who were using Social Services resources.
“When I got here, we thought it would be difficult to take in 40 or 50 [homeless people], and we’ve doubled that,” he said.
The amount of homeless individuals in the county is usually lower when temperatures are warmer in the spring and summer, but the county has still seen a large number of unhoused people even with the warmer temperatures, Gibson said.
“That was not the case when I first came here,” he said.
Through the services offered by Columbia County, individuals experiencing homelessness can apply for emergency assistance, which can provide temporary housing accommodations at hotels or motels in the area.
According to DiNapoli’s report, the number of homeless people in families tripled in the state between 2022 and 2024, growing from 34,805 families in 2022 to 95,457 in 2024.
Families make up 60.4% of the unhoused population in the state, according to the report.
In Columbia and Greene counties, the number of homeless families decreased 9%, according to the report.
However, Gibson said number of unhoused individuals has actually increased across all demographics.
“When I say we’ve seen a rise in these numbers, it’s across the demographics,” he said.
The state has offered support for counties with large homeless populations, including the state's Code Blue program, which provides funding for municipalities to implement emergency actions for the unhoused individuals during cold weather, such as warming centers.
“We’ve certainly taken full advantage of that,” Gibson said. “They have stepped up their game to help.”
In October, the county opened a warming center at the First Reformed Church, 52 Green St., in Hudson, which Gibson said has assisted Columbia County with managing its homeless population.
On the federal level, Gibson said there was an increase in programs to help developers with building more housing in areas that need it.
“I think the message has made its way to the federal and state level,” he said. “It’s really just a matter of,' are we going to be able to parlay that to add development to help the county? We certainly think so. We just think it's going to take a while.”
The rise of homelessness in the state was attributed to the increased number of eviction proceedings in the state after the pandemic-era eviction moratorium lapsed in January 2022, according to the report.
The increase was also caused by a lack of affordable housing, increased rents and an influx of individuals coming into the state, according to the report.
In Columbia County, Gibson said the reason for the increase was the lack of affordable housing and the increased rate of inflation.
In January 2022, the inflation rate in the United States was 6.3%, but by January 2024, the rate fell to 2.6%, according to the Federal Reserve.
“That has a downstream effect on working-class people being able to afford apartments and the like,” he said. “So, I have to think that’s playing into this.”
In Greene County, the homeless population has not doubled, but remains high, with nearly 60 homeless individuals using services from the Greene County Department of Social Services.
“That’s a big population for us,” Greene County Department of Social Services Commissioner Kira Pospesel said. “So, not everyone is able to be housed in Greene County.”
Greene County uses a similar system to Columbia County, and places homeless individuals in hotels and motels in the area. Greene County also does not have a warming center, impacting where homeless individuals can be placed, Pospesel said.
“Once we’re out of rooms, we have to ask permission from another county to use their rooms,” she said.
Pospesel attributed the increase in the homeless population in Greene County to the pandemic, as well as a lack of affordable-housing stock.
“I think when the pandemic happened, housing costs rose in Greene County, and this is a consequence of that.” she said.
Pospesel has also seen more families in need of resources, which is different from the data collected by DiNapoli. The data in DiNapoli’s report using federal Department of Housing and Urban Development data, which used a point-in-time analysis to collect data on a specific day of the year.
“That is definitely changing at this point,” she said. “I’m seeing more families.”
On the state and federal levels, more could be done to increase affordable housing, Pospesel said.
“There’s an overall lack of housing for everyone,” she said. “So, if we could solve that problem, I think it would ease up in some of these other things.”
