The ranks of homeless families are rising, with substantial increases in suburban and rural areas, according to an annual report on homelessness released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The trend is "one of the most tragic consequences" of the economic downtown, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said in a telephone news briefing.

Though the number of single people in shelters remained about the same from 2007 to 2008, the family population increased by 9 percent.

The report, which the department must prepare for Congress each year, "confirms what a lot of us have been predicting," he said. "At the end of 2007, the housing crisis was already taking a toll."

In a one-night spot count in January 2008, HUD reported 664,000 homeless individuals and families across the country. The department estimated that over the course of last year, 1.6 million people had stayed in shelters or lived outdoors.

"This data is the canary in the coal mine," said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group in Washington. "Homelessness rates had been decreasing in the last few years, so this represents an abrupt shift in direction."

In Philadelphia, groups that provide emergency housing for families have reported an increase in calls for help.

Stephanie Goldstein, a vice president of ACHIEVEability, a nonprofit provider of housing in West Philadelphia for single-parent families in crisis, said calls to the group's offices were up 50 percent from last year.

"We're just getting more of them - from people who can't double up anymore with relatives, people going into shelters or coming out shelters, or dealing with substandard living conditions," she said.

Donovan said HUD released $1.2 billion in federal stimulus money yesterday to cities and states to help people hold onto their homes and to rapidly rehouse those already in shelters.

The federal aid will be used, for instance, to pay delinquent utility bills or cover security deposits on apartments.

Philadelphia will receive $21.4 million of that stimulus money over three years. Dainette Mintz, director of the city Office of Supportive Housing, said the first grants should be made in August.

Phyllis Ryan Jackson, executive director of SafeHome Philadelphia, a privately funded project to divert families in crisis from shelters to permanent housing, said such spending "can and should prevent or quickly end homelessness for these folks."

The HUD report found that people in the suburbs and rural areas accounted for 32 percent of the shelter population in 2008, up from 23 percent in 2007.

Half of the nation's homeless population lived in five states - New York, Florida, California, Texas, and Michigan - with the largest numbers in Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit.

To more quickly track homelessness trends, HUD also produced a new quarterly report with results from nine regions. That report, which did not include Philadelphia, showed wide variations in shelter trends from city to city. But it found that, overall, 55 percent of all the homeless were families with children.

In recent years, HUD has emphasized investing in programs to reduce the ranks of single people living on the streets or cycling in and out of shelters for years on end.

Though that remains a priority, Donovan said, "we need to advance strategies around homeless families and increase funding" for them.

Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659 or jlin@phillynews.com.