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Brian Lairn on WNYC.

Here's a story from over the holidays that I don't want to get lost in all the other big national and local news that's been taking place.

A report released in December from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development showed that the number of people experiencing

homeless in the U.S. topped 770,000 last year.

I believe that's for the first time.

Our guests will clarify whether that's the case.

It was a measure of homelessness in January of last year, though it just got released near the end of the year,

the national count is conducted in January each year. And homelessness at the beginning of

2024 rose by a third compared to two years earlier. What an increase. And just at the time that you think the economy and

everything else is recovering from the pandemic. Another way to look at it, it was an increase of

more than 18 percent in the number of Americans who were homeless from just the previous year.

So we have two guests to break down what's in the report,

what the Biden administration as it leaves office thinks is the root of the problem,

what the Trump administration, as it comes in, plans to do about it, if anything,

and to talk about what else might be done. Jennifer Ludden, you know the name probably,

NPR National Correspondent, who covers economic inequality, systemic disparities in housing, and

more, and Peter Hepburn, Associate Director of the Eviction Lab, and that's in the context

of his sociology professor status at Rutgers, Rutgers,

Newark. Jennifer and Peter, welcome to WNYC.

Hi there. Thank you. Thanks for having.

So Jennifer, this count done by the Department of Housing and Urban Development,

...