How many people in the United States are homeless? Because statistics documenting the extent of homelessness vary widely, there is no easy answer to this question. For example, the National Coalition for the Homeless and the Urban Institute estimate that on an average night there are over 700,000 people sleeping on the streets or in homeless shelters. Other organizations, however, argue that this number is exaggerated, and that in truth only 300,000 people are homeless on any given night.

The difficulty in determining the number of homeless people in the United States is caused in part by disparities in the definition of homelessness. Some experts in the field assert that there are two broad categories of homelessness, which sometimes overlap. The first category, episodic homelessness, refers to people who are temporarily homeless because of extreme poverty. Homeless people in this category often experience problems such...