Homelessness Increases at Airports as Shelter Space Remains Inadequate

homelessness in airports

Major airports in cities from Seattle to Chicago and New York are seeing sizeable numbers of people experiencing homelessness on their campuses as shelter options remain thin.

Airports are often attractive places for unhoused people to go because they offer amenities like Wi-Fi access, electricity, and restrooms. However, airports are also often ill-equipped to connect unhoused people with services in a strategic and effective way. In turn, some airports have turned to criminalizing people to control visible homelessness.

Whether we’re housed or unhoused, everyone wants a sense of safety, and places like airports that are open 24 hours per day and offer basic amenities like running water and bathrooms can be attractive places for people who are unhoused,” Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told Invisible People in an interview. “They want the same things that the rest of us want—somewhere to sleep where we’re not going to be victimized.”

Seattle Launches Program to Connect Homeless People with Services

Visible homelessness is nothing new in Seattle. But the growing number of people experiencing homelessness at Seattle’s airport comes amid a nationwide spike in unsheltered homelessness. There are more than 13,000 individuals experiencing homelessness in King County, where Seattle is located, according to the latest Point in Time Count results from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. That total represents an increase of about 18% since 2020.

In turn, the city is trying to help people sleeping at the airport find housing and other services to help them escape homelessness instead of relying solely on criminalization measures. For example, the city launched a program called SEA Cares last year that is designed to connect unhoused people with services.

SEA Cares is essentially a group of dedicated Port of Seattle officers that contact people experiencing homelessness at the airport. These officers are trained in crisis intervention and can connect individuals with “a network of regional organizations who can provide direct assistance to people in distress,” according to the port’s website.

“Like everyone in the region and around the country, homelessness has been a challenge,” Perry Cooper, a spokesperson for the Port of Seattle, which oversees airport operations, told Westside Seattle. “The airport is not immune to the challenge.”

Chicago Experienced a 58% Increase in Homeless People at O’Hare

Other cities like Chicago have turned to criminalization to address homelessness at their major airports.

In February, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport became the source of a social media frenzy about the number of unhoused people sleeping there. Data from the Haymarket Center, a nonprofit group serving O’Hare’s unhoused community, counted 618 unhoused people at the airport in 2022, a 58% increase from 2021.

CBS News spoke with two employees at the airport who relayed stories about people experiencing homelessness who trashed the bathrooms, dried their clothes in the terminal, and trashed the airport bathrooms.  

Alderman Raymond Lopez, a frequent critic of former Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, went on Fox News to say, “This beautiful gateway to Chicago has been overrun by the homeless.”

Lightfoot responded by telling the Chicago Tribune that her administration would “take the steps that are necessary to move people out of the airports.”

“We absolutely fundamentally cannot have people sleeping in our airports who are homeless,” Lightfoot said. “That is unacceptable. We are going to continue, within the bounds of the law, to do what is necessary to provide those folks with support but elsewhere. They can’t be in our airports.”

However, Chicago doesn’t have the resources to provide shelter to the people sleeping at the airport, which draws the efficacy of the Lightfoot administration’s approach. Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services operates a little more than 3,000 shelter beds across 50 facilities in the city, according to CBS. That’s compared to the almost 3,900 people experiencing homelessness in Chicago, according to the latest federal one-night count.

New York Won’t Remove Unhoused People Unless They Become Violent

New York City has struggled to effectively deal with the number of people experiencing homelessness at one of its major airports, JFK International in Jamaica Queens.

One flight attendant recently told Fox5NY that the trains at JFK airport are a favorite destination for some unhoused people because they’re heated, and people often leave the weary travelers alone. However, New York’s Port Authority told the local news station they won’t remove the unhoused people from the airport unless they become violent.

The Port Authority also contracts with Urban Pathways, a local service provider, to connect individuals experiencing homelessness with housing and medical treatments.

These efforts come amid a troubling rise of homelessness in New York. Data from the Coalition for the Homeless, a local continuum of care, shows that there were more than 65,000 people experiencing homelessness as of December 2022, the highest total ever recorded in the Big Apple.

“While Mayor Adams has focused on sweeping unsheltered homeless people out of sight, he has failed to give those without homes the stable housing they need,” Jacquelyn Simone, the coalition’s policy director, said in a statement.

How You Can Help

The pandemic proved that we need to rethink housing in the US. It also showed that aid programs work when providing agencies and service organizations with sufficient funds and clear guidance on spending aid dollars.

Contact your officials and representatives. Tell them you support keeping many of the pandemic-related aid programs in place for future use. They have proven effective at keeping people housed, which is the first step to ending homelessness.


Robert Davis

Robert Davis

Robert is a freelance journalist based in Colorado who covers housing, police, and local government.

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