The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) definition of homelessness is confined to people living on the street or in shelters. HUD should expand its definition of homelessness to include not only people living in the street or in shelters, but people in motels and with friends and family due to economic hardship, as the McKinney-Vento definition does.

The HUD definition of homelessness is the definition generally used by communities conducting homeless counts. It is simply inane to assess the level of homelessness in a community and not include people living in motels or double or triple occupying cramped apartments with friends or family. The risk in not adopting a more realistic definition of homelessness is very real.

If we are to end homelessness, we have to agree on what homelessness means, and how we measure it. The current HUD definition of homelessness, which acts as the basis for homeless counts, fundamentally obscures our ability to assess the true number of persons experiencing homelessness. Tell HUD to count everyone without a home as homeless.

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