Despite what you read online, the amount of Americans who see unsheltered homeless on a daily basis is very low.
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress. The report found 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022 (https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HU...)
- Largest college football stadium: Michigan Stadium (Ann Arbor, Mich.) 107,601 (https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-07-30/25-big...)
- The population of Baltimore, MD is 576,498 as of the last census, so would be a closer point of comparison.
Something like 80% of Americans live in an urban setting
The key TL;DR determination factor (there are others, read for yourself) is this:
In order for a block to qualify as urban, it must have a den-
sity of 1,000 people per square mile (ppsm).
I don't think I've ever seen a homeless person outside a major city... you just don't see it in suburbs or rural areas.
Again, major problem, it's just that most Americans don't see it on a regular basis... which perhaps is part of the root of the problem. Makes it easy to ignore.
I'm most familiar with Philadelphia where you'll either see multiple homeless people every day... or rarely. Depends on where you live and work. Every other city I've been to in my life seems similar.
Anyway, I don't want to get too far in the weeds with my nitpickery. I don't even remember what we were originally talking about!
Instead of being in the middle of the city, there are entire tent metropolises hidden in the woods in Berlin.