“Homelessness has been an issue, but has not shown up as visibly as it is now” in suburbia, said Lawrence Levy, executive director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, on Long Island.

“The average person didn’t know someone who was homeless and rarely saw someone who was homeless as long as they stayed out of those pockets of poverty that have been there for a while. But they’re seeing it more and more now, in train stations or other public places, and it’s people that they know.”

Homelessness is rising in the suburbs because of an influx of poorer residents living in uncertain situations, high concentrations of homeowners battered by the foreclosure crisis, and economies that are largely dependent on small businesses that are reeling from the lack of available credit. In addition, cities, which have been more aggressively focused on ending chronic homelessness than the suburbs, may have more services to prevent it.

“In Connecticut cities, we’ve done a decent job of creating permanent supportive housing and creating long-term opportunities, particularly for those people with ongoing and significant barriers to housing,” said Carol Walter, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness. “So the urban areas might be a little bit ahead in making a dent in the homeless population.”

Part of the problem, experts say, is that unemployed homeowners are losing their properties as they exhaust severance pay and other benefits and still cannot find work. And among renters, many of the newly homeless have been evicted either because their buildings have gone into foreclosure or because landlords suddenly need to house members of their own families.

Image A dormitory for women at the Bergen County shelter. Credit... Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

“We were dealing for so long with the subprime-mortgage and predatory-lending crisis, but now what we’re seeing is a greater percentage of those losing their jobs” among the newly homeless, said Connie Lassandro, director of housing and homeless services in Nassau County. “We thought we were getting things under control, but the job losses are now creating a second wave of foreclosures. You can’t save a home if there’s no income.”