Correction to Unsheltered Point in Time Count
Ever since the 2025 Point in Time (PIT) Count of houseless people was published, Mayor Johnston and his team have been touting a “45% reduction in unsheltered homelessness” from 2023 to 2025. The PIT counted 785 people as “unsheltered” in 2025 (11% of the 7,327 total houseless population counted that night) – a 45% reduction from 2023 when there were 1,423 unsheltered individuals counted, and what would be a lesser 38% reduction in unsheltered homelessness since 2024, when 1,273 unsheltered individuals were counted.
Yet there is a significant problem with this 2025 count. On the night of the count, it was extremely cold and the emergency cold weather shelters were opened. These are shelters that only open when it is under 25 degrees. On these cold nights, houseless people who otherwise stay on the streets unsheltered go into these emergency shelters. On this night, there were 566 individuals staying in the cold weather shelters. These people are otherwise unsheltered staying on the streets. They should be counted as unsheltered, not sheltered.
If you add these 566 people to the 785 counted as unsheltered, that makes the actual total 1,351 unsheltered – 18.4% of the total houseless population counted, and almost doubling the original unsheltered count.
This means there was NOT a reduction in unsheltered homelessness at all, much less a 45% reduction.
From 1,423 in 2023… To 1,273 in 2024… To 1,351 in 2025 – this actually suggests a slight increase.
This is a conservative correction that only adds the individuals who were staying at cold weather shelters. On the night of the PIT count, there were also 387 families (totaling 1,373 individuals) staying in cold weather shelters who were counted as sheltered, not unsheltered. In reality, if the cold weather shelters did not happen to be open on that day, a large percentage of these families would have been on the streets living in vehicles, and some on the literal streets with nothing.
We did not include the families staying in cold weather shelters in our corrected unsheltered count above because not all the families were otherwise unsheltered – some stayed with friends, or paid for hotels, or other temporary housing arrangements. However, a more accurate unsheltered count would include hundreds of families with kids who would have been unsheltered that night had it not been below 25 degrees.
Furthermore, the low unsheltered count in 2025 is also due to the significant increase in enforcement. As police data shows, there has been a 133% increase in ticketing for anti-houseless laws since 2022. Enforcement by police, SET, and private security to push houseless people out of sight is more intense than ever – making it nearly impossible for houseless people to set up tents or even sleep with blankets in a visible spot. This means that when the PIT count happened in 2025, many unsheltered people were hidden throughout the City and not counted. Even in extreme cold there are many people who do not go into emergency cold weather shelters for many reasons and still must hide while living on the streets. As this survey shows, even in the cold, the City was still sweeping people – pushing them into more hidden, unsafe places and often losing/having all their property trashed in the extreme cold.
It is critical that the facts about unsheltered houseless people are corrected. It is simply false that there has been a decrease in unsheltered homelessness under Johnston. We are calling on the City and all media to correct this number and clarify there were actually at least 1,351 unsheltered houseless people in 2025.
Conclusion:
There was no reduction in unsheltered houselessness, but rather, an increase between 2024 to 2025. The Mayor indicated that they had reduced street homelessness by 45%. This is false.
Further Clarification re PIT Unsheltered Count Correction
After putting out the correction to the unsheltered Point in Time count the Mayor’s office responded by saying, “Cold weather shelters were also open in 2023, and there were nearly twice as many people counted as being on the streets during that count.” When we asked HOST for the data on cold weather shelter usage for 2023, they could not find the data. So we have no numbers to re-evaluate 2023 unsheltered houseless adding those in cold weather shelter. Nonetheless, we do know cold weather shelter usage has increased each year so was likely less in 2023. For example 2024 cold weather shelter use ranged from about 268 to 151 – not like the 566 in 2024. So even if you add 250 to the 1,423 counted in 2023 (making 1,673) it would not be even close to 45% more than 1,351 in 2025.
Furthermore, the City fails to mention that cold weather shelters were NOT open in 2024 the day of the PIT. And in 2024 there were 1,273 people counted as unsheltered.
Even just looking at the increase from 2024 to 2025, if we include those mis-counted as sheltered in 2024 from the cold weather shelters there was an increase from 1,273 to 1,351.
Again, this is not including families in cold weather shelters or hidden houseless people on the streets.
The fact remains true, there was not a decrease in unsheltered houselessness under Mayor Johnston.
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