Look where homelessness is growing — and why

New federal statistics show US homelessness rose slightly this year — driven by a 4 percent jump in New York City and similar increases in Los Angeles and other West Coast cities.

In short, the problem is growing in areas that are spending the most to help. Mayor de Blasio, for example, has doubled anti-homelessness spending to $88 million.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development found 3,936 people living on de Blasio’s streets this year, up from 2,838 in 2016. HUD also counts a total of 72,565 homeless New Yorkers, including those in shelters the city doesn’t run.

Team de Blasio’s approach to the city’s “right to shelter” law is helping the record numbers: Families who once would have let relatives live “doubled up” with them now encourage them to enter the shelter system for a temporary place to stay until the city gives them an emergency grant, puts them in public housing or gets them a Section 8 subsidy.

The increase has led city homeless czar Steven Banks to use hotels, at an average per-family cost of $6,570 a month. And that gambit has driven community resentment that led to the unseating of such de Blasio defenders as Assemblywoman Marge Markey and City Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, both of Queens.

Expect the political headwinds to grow stronger until the city changes course.