18.6 Million Empty Houses in America
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 04.29.08
Empty Houses, Buffalo, New York Times
That is what the census says. Andrew Leonard in Salon notes that it is a bit misleading, that "4.7 million are for "seasonal use" only, the Census tells us -- unoccupied vacation homes, in other words. 4.1 million are for rent, 2.3 million are for sale, and the remaining 7.5 million "were vacant for a variety of other reasons."
The census also lists the total number of homeless in America as 759,101, so there are 24 empty houses for every homeless person in America. What a shocking misallocation of resources, materials and energy. ::How the World Works
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