NYC spends more per homeless person than a typical household earns in a year, data shows

Fox News ^ | 3/18/26 | Amanda Macias

[Libloather]

New York City has more than tripled spending on unsheltered homelessness since 2019, shelling out nearly $368 million even as the number of people living on the streets continued to rise, according to a state comptroller’s report.

The city’s own numbers show the unsheltered population grew from 3,588 in fiscal year 2019 to 4,504 in fiscal year 2025, a 26% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Over that same period, spending on services for the unsheltered jumped 262%, from $102 million to nearly $368 million.

That works out to roughly $81,700 per unsheltered person in FY 2025 — slightly more than the city’s median household income, though the comparison is only a broad benchmark since public spending and household earnings are not directly comparable.

The numbers show the city is pouring in more money while the street homeless population continues to grow — and taxpayers are footing the bill.

Still, the report notes that New York’s shelter system remains unusually large by national standards.

Los Angeles, the city with the next-largest homeless population, has about 71,000 homeless people, roughly half of New York City’s 2024 total, and about 70% of them are unsheltered. In New York City, by contrast, nearly 97% of the homeless population is in shelters.

The findings are likely to add fuel to the broader debate over housing affordability, as soaring rents and a shortage of low-cost housing remain central to New York City’s homelessness crisis — and a key issue for Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

While Mamdani has proposed freezing rents on roughly 2 million stabilized apartments, many economists argue that rent freezes may shield current tenants in the short term while worsening the city’s long-term housing shortage — doing little to solve the supply crisis at the root of New York’s homelessness problem.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Health/Medicine; Local News
KEYWORDS: boondoggle; data; fraud; homeless; housing; madmani; newyork; nyc; ripoff; scam

[Libloather]

Sounds like every homeless person should own at least one home.

[ClearCase_guy]

The media sometimes does a sob story on a homeless family of 4 living in their car, or in a shelter. The government spends $320,000 on that family.

[mewzilla]

Note to the other 49...

Yuk it up, but Albany will have the last laugh if Albany gets Congress to stick you with the bill.

[PGalt]

NYCriminal co-conspirators.

[SisterK]

$81,700 per unsheltered person

I could live high on the hog

[Wallace T.]

You can bet there is some serious graft occurring in the homeless funding. Like the billions of dollars spent on a rail line in California that does not have a single mile of track laid or the hundreds of millions spent on the Obama Library, you have to know that someone is pocketing the cost overruns and finding ways, such as overseas banks or crypto, to hide the funds.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Wow when they show up here our sheriff puts them in a car and drives them to Sante Fe (about 5 hours away) and hands them $10.

It’s amazing how few you have when you have no shelters, no charities, and no money for them.

Also local Apache who beat the crap out of them if they come back.

If they sleep in the woods (camping without permit) they go to jail or freeze and get eaten by whatever. This also works.

[Kudsman]

Sounds like a job for Nick Shirley. Ferret out what agencies are “helping” the homeless and what cars they are driving.

[Robert DeLong]

I suggest that this article misses the truth, because they money is being sucked up by Democrats, and the money never goes towards the homeless at all.

[ViLaLuz]

Grifters are getting rich.

[Boardwalk]

Well not to homeless vets or disabled Americans but the illegals are getting the money.

[Kudsman]

So are dope dealers. The State provides the dope, needles and a warm cozy place to inject the poisons. That cost money for the stuff, place and “helpers”.

[Justa]

It’s just theft of public funds, which are taken from ppl against their will thru taxation, by politicians and the politically connected. “Helping the homeless” is their trademark for this theft.

In simpler terms: The government will always finds someone worse off than you to justify taking everything you have.

[Kid Shelleen]

I wonder how much actually trickles down to the homeless after all the city bureaucrats skim off their cut?

[mikey_hates_everything]

It’s grift for politicians and their “non-profit” pals to pocket money that isn’t tracked. Each bum is not getting $81k or even an equivalent per year there. Maybe half but probably not even that.

[brookwood]

The homeless are not getting 80k per year in aid. They are getting 2k per year in aid and the other 78k is being stolen by government grifters and the NGOs that get the money. They just keep the money, it is that simple.

[Judge Bean]

NYC spends $81,000 per person on their Homeless, yet a TSA Agent used to be paid $66,000. Chuck Schumer can go to h*ll.

[ViLaLuz]

Cannabis shops advertise endlessly in NY now that its use is legal. Everywhere I go there are skunk scents wafting through the air. It sticks to people’s clothes. I’m starting to see evidence of tranq use and increasing tweaker behavior. NY is going into the toilet.

[unixfox]

$81,700 per unsheltered person

And the average person on Social Security gets around $25,000 per year.

Let that sink in.

[FreedomPoster]

A buddy in SFico has referred to the “homeless industrial complex” there for years. I’d be surprised if NYC’s were not similarly formidable. Nick Shirley should take a hard look. There is probably as much fraud opportunity as with day care and hospice care.