Editorial

Every January, the US endeavors to count all of the individuals experiencing homelessness on a given night (General Definition of Homeless Individual, 1987).Local agencies called Continuums of Care tally up everyone residing in emergency shelters and transitional housing within their service areas, and send out volunteers to document people sheltering in cars or tents and other places "not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings" (42 USC § 11302).Last year, more than 580,000 people were experiencing homelessness according to this count-a record high (National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), 2023).And yet this number is almost certainly an underestimate (people experiencing unsheltered homelessness might reasonably prefer to avoid public detection).Neither does it recognize forms of severe housing insecurity that might be considered homelessness under another definition (such as doubling up or sleeping in a motel).In countries around the world, there is much to learn about who experiences homelessness, in what way, and how best to serve them.As we embark on a new year of enumerating and fighting homelessness, this focus issue of Housing Policy Debate gathers nine articles shedding light on these efforts.The issue can be split roughly into two halves, beginning with a set of articles that try to better understand the experience of homelessness.