Why Are Most Homeless People Men? Understanding the Gender Gap

The Numbers: A Stark Disparity

The American Institute for Boys and Men analyzed the 2024 HUD data and found that approximately 460,000 men experienced homelessness on any given night compared to 303,000 women. This 60/40 split has remained relatively consistent for years, though it varies by location and type of homelessness.

The disparity becomes even more pronounced when looking at specific populations:

• • Among homeless individuals (those not in family units): 70% are men
• • Among unsheltered homeless: 72% are men
• • Among chronically homeless: estimated 70-75% are men
• • Among homeless veterans: 88% are men

Only 60% of homeless men are sheltered on any given night, compared to 72% of homeless women. This means men are significantly more likely to be sleeping on streets, in cars, under bridges, or in encampments rather than in emergency shelters or transitional housing.

The Shelter System Was Not Built for Single Men

The American homeless services system evolved primarily to serve families, particularly women with children. This made sense historically when the visible face of poverty was often a mother trying to keep her children housed. Federal funding, shelter capacity, and program design followed this priority.

The result is a system where:

• • Family shelters often have private or semi-private rooms while men's shelters are large dormitories
• • Women with children can access TANF, WIC, and other family-focused benefits more easily
• • Domestic violence shelters serve primarily women (appropriately, given the nature of DV)
• • Single adult men are often the lowest priority for limited housing vouchers
• • Many programs have age, sobriety, or behavioral requirements that disproportionately exclude men

This is not to say women have it easy. Homeless women face unique and serious dangers including sexual violence and exploitation. But the infrastructure to help them exists in ways it does not for single men.

A man who loses his housing and has no children faces a system with far fewer entry points. He may be told the shelter is full, that he does not qualify for family programs, that his substance use or mental health issues make him ineligible for certain facilities, or simply that there is nothing available for someone like him.

Masculinity and Help-Seeking Behavior

Cultural expectations around masculinity create additional barriers. Men are socialized from childhood to be self-reliant, to solve their own problems, to avoid showing weakness or asking for help. These expectations do not disappear when a man loses his housing. If anything, they intensify.

Research consistently shows that men are less likely than women to:

• • Seek help for mental health issues before they become crises
• • Reach out to family members when struggling financially
• • Access social services even when eligible
• • Admit to needing assistance

A man facing eviction may exhaust every option before admitting he needs help. By the time he reaches a shelter, he may have burned bridges with family, lost his job, developed or worsened substance use problems, and accumulated barriers that make recovery harder.

The shame associated with male homelessness is profound. Many men would rather sleep under a bridge than face the perceived humiliation of standing in a shelter line. This is not rational, but it is real, and any effective intervention must account for it.

Pathways to Homelessness: How Men Fall

The routes into homelessness differ somewhat by gender. Several pathways disproportionately affect men:

Incarceration

Men are incarcerated at roughly 10 times the rate of women. When released, they face criminal records that bar them from many housing options and most jobs. A felony conviction can make someone ineligible for public housing, unable to pass background checks for apartments, and unhirable for positions that could support stable housing.

In Tulsa's 2025 Point-in-Time survey, 56% of people experiencing homelessness reported a history of justice involvement. The prison-to-street pipeline is real, and it flows predominantly through men.

Military Service

Veterans are overrepresented in the homeless population, and 88% of homeless veterans are men. Combat trauma, difficulty transitioning to civilian life, and service-related disabilities all contribute. The good news is that targeted programs have reduced veteran homelessness by 55% since 2010. The bad news is that similar resources do not exist for non-veteran men with trauma.

Workplace Injuries

Men dominate industries with high injury rates: construction, manufacturing, mining, agriculture. A back injury that prevents physical labor can cascade into job loss, insurance loss, opioid dependency for pain management, relationship breakdown, and eventually homelessness. This pathway is tragically common and often involves no moral failure whatsoever.

Family Breakdown

When marriages end, men typically leave the family home. Courts generally favor mothers in custody decisions, particularly for young children. A divorced father may find himself suddenly without housing, without his primary support system, and with reduced access to his children. The emotional devastation can trigger depression, substance use, and further decline.

Women also experience homelessness from relationship breakdown, often fleeing domestic violence. But the pattern is different: women leaving abusive relationships can often access DV shelters and family services. Men leaving relationships, especially if they are the ones asked to leave, have fewer dedicated resources.

Mental Health and Substance Use

Mental illness and substance use disorders affect both men and women experiencing homelessness. However, the way these conditions present and are treated differs by gender.

Men are more likely to:

• • Self-medicate with alcohol and drugs rather than seeking treatment
• • Experience mental illness symptoms that manifest as aggression or paranoia, leading to exclusion from shelters
• • Die by suicide (men are four times more likely than women)
• • Refuse treatment due to stigma around mental health care for men

Many shelters have behavioral requirements that disproportionately exclude men whose mental illness or substance use creates disruptive behavior. A man in psychosis may be banned from the very services he needs most, while a woman with similar symptoms might be more readily accommodated in a facility designed for vulnerable populations.

Social Networks and Safety Nets

Research shows that women generally maintain stronger social networks than men. They are more likely to stay connected with family members, maintain friendships, and participate in community organizations like churches. These connections serve as informal safety nets when crisis hits.

Men, particularly as they age, are more likely to become socially isolated. They may have fewer close friendships, less contact with extended family, and weaker community ties. When housing becomes precarious, they have fewer people to call, fewer couches to crash on, and less informal support to prevent the slide into homelessness.

This isolation also makes recovery harder. A man with no family connections has no one to stay with during transitional periods, no one to co-sign a lease, no one to provide the social support that sustains recovery from addiction or mental illness.

The Unsheltered Reality

Perhaps the starkest gender disparity is in unsheltered homelessness. Men are far more likely to be living on the streets, in encampments, in vehicles, or in abandoned buildings. This matters because unsheltered homelessness is:

• • More dangerous (exposure to weather, violence, health risks)
• • More visible (leading to criminalization and harassment)
• • Harder to escape (no address for job applications, no stability for recovery)
• • More likely to become chronic

Life expectancy for people experiencing chronic unsheltered homelessness is 26 years shorter than the general population. The mortality rate is 3.5 times higher. These statistics skew heavily male because unsheltered homelessness skews heavily male.

What Would Help

Addressing the male homelessness crisis requires acknowledging it exists. That sounds obvious, but much of the public discourse around homelessness focuses on families and women, while single men remain invisible or stigmatized.

Effective intervention would include:

• • More shelter capacity specifically for single men, including low-barrier options that do not require sobriety or behavioral compliance for entry
• • Mental health outreach designed for men, acknowledging the stigma and resistance many men feel toward traditional services
• • Reentry programs for formerly incarcerated men, providing housing, job training, and support during the critical transition period
• • Peer support models, where men who have experienced homelessness help others navigate the system
• • Comprehensive programs that address root causes, not just emergency shelter, but mental health treatment, addiction recovery, job training, and transitional housing

The success in reducing veteran homelessness proves that targeted, well-funded intervention works. Veterans represent a population that is overwhelmingly male, and dedicated programs have reduced their homelessness by more than half. The same approach could work for the broader male homeless population if we decided it was a priority.

Why The Steady Ground Focuses on Men

This is why The Steady Ground is being built specifically for men. Not because women do not matter, but because the existing system already prioritizes them, appropriately given historical needs. Single adult men are the underserved majority of the homeless population.

Our model addresses the specific factors that affect men:

• • Long-term residential programs rather than night-by-night shelter
• • Trauma-informed care that accounts for combat, workplace injury, and incarceration trauma
• • Mental health and addiction services designed to overcome male resistance to treatment
• • Job training and placement that leads to sustainable employment
• • Community and brotherhood that rebuilds the social networks many men have lost
• • A comprehensive clinical assessment that identifies each man's specific needs and creates an individualized roadmap

Every man deserves the chance to rebuild. The current system is not giving them that chance. We intend to change that.