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New York’s Rise in Homelessness Went Against National Trend, U.S. Report Finds

The federal government’s annual homelessness count showed an increase in New Yorkers living on the streets or in shelters, even as the number of homeless people nationwide dipped slightly compared with the previous year.

The results of the count, released on Thursday by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, confirmed what many New Yorkers had already recognized, particularly in recent months — that homelessness was rising and that more government action was needed.

New York, with a population of over eight million, has about 14 percent of all homeless people in the United States, or 75,323 people, the count found.

The total, based on a count conducted over the last 10 days of January, is drawn from a broader array of data than the city uses for its daily count. The city’s number, which counts the people staying in shelters overseen by the Homeless Services Department, peaked at just over 59,000 last December, and it is currently just under 58,000. But the city’s daily count does not include some adolescents, some domestic violence victims and other people who are in shelters overseen by other agencies.

On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, unveiled a $2.6 billion, 15-year plan to create 15,000 units of housing that will include social services for veterans, mentally disabled people and others needing help.

It was the latest effort by the mayor to address a homelessness crisis that has been building for years and has drawn public attention recently. Even as he has taken steps to reduce homelessness, the mayor has sought to tamp down public sentiment that street homelessness is out of control.

But on Thursday, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton struck a different tone, saying street homelessness “has exploded over the last two years.”

“It hasn’t crept up on us,” Commissioner Bratton said during a panel discussion on quality-of-life issues in New York, held by the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank. He also suggested the mayor had been slow to acknowledge the problem.

“The mistake the administration made early on was not validating what everyone was seeing,” Mr. Bratton said. Later, the commissioner commended the administration for devoting more resources to the problem.

For aides in City Hall, Mr. Bratton’s comments were an unwelcome note at a time when Mr. de Blasio is trying to rehabilitate his image as a vigorous urban manager. After the commissioner’s remarks, a spokeswoman for the mayor issued a series of statements from Mr. de Blasio, some from early in his administration, in which he pledged to address homelessness.

Holly M. Leicht, HUD’s regional administrator for New York and New Jersey, said in a statement that the city was a “committed partner” that was “putting money where its mouth is to tackle homelessness head on.”

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Julián Castro, the federal housing secretary, said that the lack of federal funding for affordable housing had slowed overall progress.

“The United States is experiencing an affordable housing crisis today,” Mr. Castro said, “and it’s experiencing this affordable housing crisis at a time when shrinking federal budgets fail to provide HUD and our partners with the resources that we need to get to the finish line.”

Los Angeles and New York were among the five major cities that accounted for a quarter of unaccompanied homeless youths. But groups like First Focus Campaign for Children, a nonprofit children’s advocacy group based in Washington, say that many homeless adolescents avoid public places where they could be counted for fear of referral to Child Protective Services and that they avoid shelters out of safety concerns.

Mr. Castro said HUD was working on improvements to the counting process. “We’ll take additional actions that will further improve the accuracy of our data and produce more effective solutions for the challenges facing our young people,” he said.

Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 26 of the New York edition with the headline: Homelessness Rises in City, Resisting a U.S. Trend . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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