Homewood, Alabama

Area Profile

27,829 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Homewood, in Jefferson County.

66out of 100
Area Score
Top 30% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 25% of 3,904 published cities69
Growth1662nd of 2,973 published cities47
Housing affordability2734th of 4,223 published cities71
ClimateTop 32% of 4,223 published cities74
Physical resilienceTop 49% of 4,182 published cities60
AccessTop 29% of 4,226 published cities97
Economic stabilityTop 44% of 4,226 published cities63
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.2% and median household income $94,485, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Rent takes 19% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 5.9 times that income.

A major airport is 8 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
27,829
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$94,485
Top 22% nationally
Density
3,368/sq mi
8.3 sq mi of land
Median age
29.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Jefferson County
Alabama
Metro area
Birmingham, AL
Nearest major airport
BHM
8 mi · Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Intl
Median home value
$558,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.2% is lower than 92% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 1.7% over the past year, to 14,184 employed residents.

71% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 97% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$10,781$94,485Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,409$53,746Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate8.9%Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute18.8 minBottom 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher70.9%Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment14,184Bottom 12%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.8%Bottom 37%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.7%Bottom 27%June 2026
Labor force14,647Bottom 12%June 2026
Labor force participation68.2%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$60,770Bottom 17%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$47,770Bottom 21%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)1.0%Top 5%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.2%Bottom 8%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/063.21.3
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.2% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024108k89k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $94,485 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Birmingham, AL
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Registered Nurses17,850$78,680
Retail Salespersons15,280$31,450
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive10,900$44,580
Stockers and Order Fillers10,890$35,660
Cashiers10,690$29,310
Fast Food and Counter Workers10,080$27,020

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There are 13.3 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Homewood High SchoolHomewood City1,33312.1
Homewood Middle SchoolHomewood City1,00014.5
Edgewood Elementary SchoolHomewood City93514.0
Hall Kent Elementary SchoolHomewood City71712.8
Shades Cahaba Elementary SchoolHomewood City50712.7
Magic City Acceptance Academy · charterMagic City Acceptance Academy34515.7

27.0% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Alabama’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $1,463 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.9 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
18.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,463
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$558,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.91Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate61.7%Bottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±44310,882Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$94$1,463Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$28,609$558,500Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.6%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate9.7%Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
47/ 100
Ranks 1662 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2020 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has grown 2% since 2020, reaching 27,919 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 0.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
26
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.9
Bottom 29% nationally
Year over year
+18%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202428k27k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
202020222023202420257326
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−36%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 35°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 56.6 inches, including 1.4 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 57, in the Moderate band, and about 6 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station BIRMINGHAM AP, 8.3 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index79.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation56.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall1.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low35°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10062024 calendar year
Median air quality index57.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing37°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
57
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
79
90th percentile index
Days above 100
6
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

60 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, tornado and earthquake.

TornadoHigh
LightningModerate
Inland floodingModerate
EarthquakeModerate
LandslideModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, heat wave, strong wind, ice storm, winter weather, wildfire, hurricane, hail, drought.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Jefferson County records 17.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 24.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 28.4 per 100,000 residents in Jefferson County.

Homicide
17.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
24.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
28.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
12.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Jefferson County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Homewood rather than Homewood itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 8 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth IntlBHM8 mi12,007 ft
Huntsville Intl-Carl T Jones FldHSV81 mi10,001 ft
Montgomery Rgnl (Dannelly Fld)MGM84 mi9,020 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
66
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Other cities in Birmingham, AL

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
BirminghamJefferson County198,17356vs Homewood
HooverJefferson County92,64272vs Homewood
Vestavia HillsJefferson County38,61665vs Homewood
AlabasterShelby County33,91770vs Homewood
TrussvilleJefferson County26,67374vs Homewood
BessemerJefferson County25,40053vs Homewood
PelhamShelby County24,82770vs Homewood
Mountain BrookJefferson County22,02966vs Homewood
HelenaShelby County21,76971vs Homewood
CaleraShelby County17,71470vs Homewood
GardendaleJefferson County16,53468vs Homewood
HueytownJefferson County16,41460vs Homewood

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Compare

Put Homewood side by side with a similar place.

Homewood vs OrchardsHomewood vs CarrboroHomewood vs AlohaHomewood vs Charlotte

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Homewood

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
3520932,734$71,43961
352292,792