AUSTIN, Texas - “We appreciate our local Continuum of Care lead agency, the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO), for spearheading the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, a federally mandated activity required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to measure the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night, both sheltered and unsheltered.

“The latest PIT Count shows nearly 600 more people are now indoors and off the street – a 50% increase compared to 2023. Without our efforts since 2023 to add more shelter beds by doubling capacity at Northbridge and Southbridge, sustaining the Marshalling Yard, opening the Eighth Street Women’s Shelter, and investing in shelter expansion at The Esperanza Community, hundreds more individuals would most likely be living on our streets. Also, this year marks the first time the PIT Count shows more people in shelters than unsheltered – punctuating the success of our focus on adding shelter beds so more people can come indoors and begin their path toward stability.

“Still, communities across the country have identified several flaws and challenges with the PIT Count methodology. The PIT Count only reflects a single night in January, not the flow of people entering and exiting homelessness throughout the year. Also, the PIT Count relies on volunteers with varying levels of training and experience, which may lead to misidentification or missed individuals – affecting the accuracy of data collected. Because of these and other limitations, the Homeless Strategy Office (HSO) uses alternative methods to more reliably estimate the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness on any given night.

“Reducing homelessness remains a top priority for the City of Austin, and we are laser-focused on addressing the challenges of homeless by strategically investing in effective solutions. We recently launched a new homelessness prevention solicitation to stop households from experiencing homelessness, and our one-month-old landlord recruitment partnership with Housing Connector and Zillow has already made 2,300 housing units available to people exiting homelessness. Also, the Sunrise Wayfinder program we fund has housed more than 120 people in less than one month. In partnership with the City’s Housing Department, we are opening hundreds of new permanent supportive housing units across the City this year – including the recent ribbon cutting for the 100-unit Cady Lofts community. All these programs are new, and their impacts are not reflected in the January 2025 PIT Count.

“The Homeless Strategy Office became a standalone department in December 2023. We were staffed in April 2024 and received our first independent budget in August 2024. Despite being relatively new, our efforts already demonstrate meaningful progress. As we shared during Monday's special called joint meeting of Austin’s Public Health and Audit & Finance Committees, our team remains committed to collaborating with community partners, system funders, and others to support meaningful strategies that make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring.”

Issued by:
- David Gray, City of Austin Homeless Strategy Officer
 

To learn more about homelessness in Austin, please visit www.austintexas.gov/homelessness.