The Coalition for the Homeless—the nonprofit that leads The Way Home, the local homelessness response system in Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties— is leading the annual Homeless Count & Survey to identify the number of people experiencing homelessness in Houston and surrounding counties the week of Jan. 23, 2023. 

This will be the first PIT Count conducted since a prominent New York Times article brought national and international attention to Houston’s progress in reducing homelessness through housing plus supportive services. 

The results of the 2023 Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey, also known as the “PIT Count,” will be publicly released in spring 2023 following independent verification by an epidemiologist. The results will shed light on how the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and other factors have affected homelessness in the region. 

“We hope we won’t see an increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness this year, but there are a lot of external, societal factors at play that unfortunately may have driven more people into homelessness over the past year,” said Michael Nichols, president and CEO of the Coalition. “It’s important for people to remember that we don't create homelessness; we respond to it — much like an emergency room responds to people with illness or injuries.” 

For example, inflation coupled with rising housing costs makes it harder for people to find housing that they can afford. A shortage of affordable housing is one of the primary drivers of homelessness, not just in Houston, but nationwide. 

“Regardless of whether homeless numbers go up or down this year, we know that the partners of The Way Home have housed thousands of people these past two years, thanks to additional federal COVID relief funding allocated to the homeless response system by the City of Houston and by Harris County,” said Nichols. 

More about the 2023 Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey 

The Count offers a snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in the region on a single night. This year the “night of record” is Monday, Jan. 23. The Coalition will determine the number of people staying in shelters on that night by pulling records from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). The unsheltered count takes place the following days — Wednesday, Jan. 25 (outside 610, east of I-45); Thursday, Jan. 26 (outside 610, west of I-45), and Friday, Jan. 27 (inside 610; originally scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 24 and rescheduled due to weather).  More than 400 volunteers and staff of local service provider nonprofits will canvass the three-county region to survey people living unsheltered, using an app on their mobile devices. They will also collect information about whether people fell into homelessness as a result of COVID. 

The Count is a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) for the local Continuum of Care (CoC) funding process, which furnishes the majority of funding for programs that provide permanent housing and supportive services to people experiencing homelessness in the region. In 2022, HUD granted more than $44 million to our area, to about three dozen different homeless services providers. 

Results from the 2023 Count will help track the progress of The Way Home’s ongoing collaborative efforts between local service agencies. The Count results also help the Coalition and partner agency homeless outreach teams learn where unsheltered people are sleeping for continued outreach throughout the year, illuminate specific demographic and programmatic gaps, and provide additional information needed to end chronic homelessness and continue to improve the local homeless response system. 

For more information and for results of previous years’ counts, please click here.