[donall]

Do you have citations, particularly for housing? I'm not trying to be difficult; I'm genuinely interested in the sources because I have a sense that you're right but have never found great evidence to back it up. The raw number of residential-zoned buildings vs the number of homeless people is not as useful as it could be. I'd love to see some deeper analysis.

[knieveltech]

I initially ran across those numbers in a comment thread somewhere and spent some time researching them. To date I haven't come across a reputable source like the New York Times quoting them online but also wasn't able to find a snopes article demolishing the claim. I spent some additional time this evening looking up the base numbers:

Vacant units in 2016: http://www.realtytrac.com/news/foreclosure-trends/u-s-q1-201...

Snapshot of US homeless numbers (likely low): http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/SOH2016

Assuming these numbers are in any way accurate that leaves us with roughly 2 and a third houses per reported homeless person in the US.

So it looks like the initial statement may not be accurate but a housing surplus certainly exists.