According to experts and advocates, the last year has seen a spike in violence against the homeless. There was a beheading in Colorado. A sleeping man lit on fire in the stairwell of a New York City apartment complex. An attack by four juveniles on a sleeping woman in Washington state. Beyond these lurid headlines, however, are dozens of daily acts of violence occasioned by increasing collisions between the housed and unhoused populations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, experts say.

“We do believe there is an increase based on news reports and reports from advocates,” said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. For the past four years, homelessness numbers have climbed in America, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a trend that is expected to continue in 2022.

The response in many communities to these increases has been “a criminalization of homelessness,” Whitehead said. “That creates this culture of people not being important. Or people being less-than. It gives people permission to commit violence.”