The PIT Count Matters

Last Friday, the Alliance published an analysis of 2026 Point in Time (PIT) Counts that estimated the number of people experiencing homelessness and showed that homelessness declined dramatically last year. This is great news, and it speaks to incredible work by providers and communities across the country. It also comes at a time when HUD is trying to cut so many successful homeless assistance programs. So, what did the data show, and why was it so important? 

This was the largest single-year decrease since regular PIT Count reporting began in 2007. Given the myriad of problems facing our country, how did we get here?  

Synopsis of Recent Increases in Homelessness 

First, housing markets – a main driver of homelessness – got worse emerging from the pandemic. In 2022, the nation hit the lowest rental vacancy rates since the early 1980’s when the modern homelessness crisis began.¹ Rental cost burdens also hit dramatic highs in 2022 and 2023 and these incredibly challenging rental market conditions led to record increases in homelessness in the 2023 and 2024 PIT Counts.²

In 2022 and 2023, there were many new asylum seekers that came to certain communities, and in those places, PIT Counts showed large increases as communities made heroic efforts to shelter them.  

Other homelessness data is consistent with these dynamics. HUD collects System Performance Measures that track the number of people newly becoming homeless. This measure showed a massive increase in 2022 and another big increase in 2023, the years leading up to the 2023 and 2024 PIT Counts.  

Additionally, there were many pandemic-era resources and policies, such as Emergency Rental Assistance, Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG), Emergency Housing Vouchers, and eviction moratoria, that wound down or ended by the time of the 2024 PIT Count. All these factors contributed to the very large increases in homelessness.  

Factors Contributing to Decreasing Homelessness  

In 2024, the story changed dramatically, as many of these trends reversed. New policies reduced the number of asylum seekers needing shelter beginning in early 2024, and crucially, rental markets started to soften with housing burdens declining and rental vacancy rates rising starting in late 2023 and continuing through 2025.  

But external factors are only part of the story. Housing and shelter providers continued to successfully house people, even as the number of people newly experiencing homelessness rose. HUD System Performance Measures showed no significant changes to the length of time households experienced homelessness or the rate at which people returned to homelessness through FY 2023, even as housing market conditions got much worse and there were fewer resources to serve people.  

In other words, homelessness programs were working, even with all the challenges they were up against, but could not keep up with the number of people newly becoming homeless.  

As housing markets improved, the number of people newly experiencing homelessness declined for the first time in several years in FY 2024. (HUD has not released FY 2025 data yet). This has enabled communities to reduce homelessness for two consecutive years.  

Lastly, we should talk about the elephant in the room and why PIT Counts and other kinds of objective evidence are so important. Ending homelessness, more than almost any topic, elicits strong and often wildly divergent opinions. The Trump Administration believes that cutting permanent housing to fund more Transitional Housing will reduce homelessness. The Administration hasn’t bothered to look at any of the evidence that speaks directly to this question, nor have they bothered to support any research to see if their proposed plans make sense. The data in this PIT Count shows that’s false, and that’s why it was so important for the Alliance to publish this analysis.  

Permanent housing strategies work. It’s been demonstrated in many studies comparing their outcomes to those of other programs.³⁴ These PIT results show where communities can bring permanent housing programs to scale, as they have been for veterans in many communities, they dramatically reduce homelessness.