From https://metaculus.com/questions/15651/nyc-homelessness-in-2023--100000/

The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) is a New York City agency dedicated to preventing homelessness, addressing street homelessness, providing temporary shelter, and connecting individuals to suitable housing through collaboration with not-for-profit partners. With an annual budget of over $2 billion and 2,000 employees, DHS aims help clients transition from shelters to self-sufficiency. The agency's critical objectives include preventing households from becoming homeless, reducing street homelessness, ensuring temporary shelter availability, increasing client engagement, maintaining shelter safety, and reducing shelter stays to promote stable community housing. According to the DHS data, NYC homeless individuals in shelter (run by the DHS) in 2022 ranged from 45,213 on January 1 to 66,334 on Dec 31. As of writing this question in late March 2023, the low for 2023 was 66,564 on Jan 1, with a high of 72,522 on March 28.

This increase in individuals using DHS homeless shelters has been acknowledged by the local government, which has promised to increase funding to homeless services.

The dramatic uptick last year was fueled, experts and officials say, by the ongoing financial impact of the pandemic, the end of statewide eviction protections last year, rising rents, understaffed government agencies, a shortage of truly affordable housing and the arrival since last spring of more than 40,000 asylum seekers from the southern border that lawmakers say has strained the city's resources.

In recent months, Mayor Adams has emphasized the uptick in migrants seeking shelter as the main force driving the city's homeless population, prompting the administration to open 74 emergency shelters in addition to the HERRC sites, including a short-lived, barracks-style tent facility on Randall's Island.

"We are now seeing more people arrive than we have ever seen—averaging over 400 people each day this last week, with 835 asylum seekers arriving on one single day alone, the largest single day arrival we’ve seen to date. All this is pushing New York City to the brink," the mayor said Saturday, as he prepared to travel to El Paso, Texas to meet with local leaders along the border firsthand. "We are at our breaking point."