Roughly the size of a small city, Texas’ homeless population may not be the biggest in the country, but it’s up there.
Statistics show 23,548 Texans didn’t have a place to call their own in 2017.
Numbers from the United States Interagency Council on homeless people show Texas makes up four percent of the country’s entire homeless population, only three other states had more people who are homeless - California with 134,279, New York with 89,503, and Florida with 32,190.
The Texas Homeless Network shows Dallas city and county had the largest homeless population last year at 3,789 people. That's just 184 more than the Houston area which had 3,605 people.
This year, the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston counted over 4,000 homeless whether they sleep in shelters or on the street.
That number was more than double back in 2011 and hit an all time low last year at 3,605.
But this year, the population is back up, partially because of Hurricane Harvey. Eighteen percent of people said they became homeless after the hurricane.
Thirty percent of the our population say they have an addiction to drugs. Thirty-three percent said they suffer from a serious mental illness, and 13 percent said they experienced domestic violence.