KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 18, 2026 \u2013 A person asking for change on the corner or living in a makeshift dwelling outside is easy to identify as homeless or unhoused. But there\u2019s a segment of the population without permanent housing that goes unnoticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Molly Richard, assistant professor of public health in the äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾\u2019s College of Health Sciences<\/a>, studies the homelessness crisis, including an overlooked form of homelessness called doubling up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHomelessness is hard to define, and for many\u2014especially families with children\u2014it manifests as \u2018doubling up,\u2019 or \u2018hidden homelessness,\u2019\u201d said Richard. \u201cTo avoid shelters or the streets, people do whatever they can to stay with friends or relatives until they figure out housing of their own. The adult on the corner asking for change doesn\u2019t represent the scale of the issue; that person is just the tip of the iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many forms of doubling up. Examples include a young adult couch surfing between friends\u2019 homes, a mother and her children sleeping in one room at a grandparent\u2019s house, or multiple working adults sharing an overcrowded apartment intended for fewer residents. Because doubling up is often an unstable or inadequate experience, it can lead to other forms of homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires every state to conduct an annual census of the unhoused population. Known as a Point in Time count, conducted on an evening toward the end of January, the tally only captures the most visible forms of homelessness, such as those in warming centers, shelters, and outdoor encampments. It does not include those who are doubling up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause the federal definition of homelessness excludes those who are doubling up, someone who is couch surfing is not eligible for most programs designed to address homelessness,\u201d said Richard. \u201cSometimes families have to decide to enter a shelter or stay in their car so that they become eligible for these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To inform strategies to help those living doubled up, Richard and community partners developed a measure of doubled-up homelessness. Their estimates come from the Census Bureau\u2019s American Community Survey (ACS), an annual representative survey of all U.S. households. Because a small percentage of the population is sampled every month and data is aggregated to represent period estimates, the ACS survey captures data for a rolling point in time compared to the HUD survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cResearchers, policymakers, and advocates use these data sources to understand the full scope of homelessness, the parts we can see and those that are unseen,\u201d said Richard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since publishing an article in the Journal of Urban Affairs<\/em><\/a> on \u201cCommunity-level predictors of doubled-up homelessness,\u201d Richard has worked with cities and states across the country to examine local doubled-up homelessness data. Her research also contributed to doubled-up information in the National Alliance to End Homelessness\u2019 2025 report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report estimated that 94 out of every 10,000 people in the United States live doubled up, for a total of 3.2 million people. Of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., Hawaii, and California were tied for the highest rate of doubled-up homelessness, Rhode Island ranked 33rd, and Vermont had the lowest rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n