At its annual awards ceremony last month, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) honored New York City for leading the nation in reducing homelessness among veterans, apparently cutting it by 64 percent in just three years. NAEH president Nan Roman declared that it was “thanks to cities like New York” that the numbers have concurrently fallen across the US.

The same month, advocacy groups celebrated a glowing report published by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announcing that overall homelessness is declining nationally. The report factors a 2 percent decrease between 2013 and 2014 and 11 percent since 2007. “I’ve been working at the NAEH since 1997,” says Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy, “and I would say right now, today, is the time I feel the most hopeful that we’re going to actually solve this problem.”

Yet many anti-homelessness advocates are skeptical, finding it difficult to square the sunny narrative with the moribund economy: income inequality is the worst it has been since the Great Depression, unemployment is still high, and poverty is acute.