Publication
Nov 20, 2018
![](https://housingis.org/sites/default/files/styles/twitter_card_large_image/public/resources/HomelessnessMentalHealth-1024x683.jpg?itok=UTn3nq9n)
People with mental health disabilities are vastly overrepresented in the population of people who experience homelessness. Of the more than 550,000 people in America who experienced homelessness on a given night in 2017, 1 in 5 had a mental illness. The proportion of people experiencing chronic homelessness with mental health disabilities was even higher—nearly 1 in 3. Despite this fact, the reality is that most people with mental illness fortunately do not experience homelessness: While about 20 percent of all adults in the United States have a mental illness, less than two-tenths of 1 percent of people in the country experienced homelessness on a given night in 2017.