{"id":314507,"date":"2026-05-14T00:07:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/314507\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T00:07:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:07:26","slug":"sf-homeless-count-data-met-with-skepticism-from-advocates-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/314507\/","title":{"rendered":"SF homeless count data met with skepticism from advocates | Public Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preliminary data from this year\u2019s homeless Point-in-Time Count show reductions in homelessness throughout The City, according to Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s office \u2014 but homelessness advocates said that due to changes in its methodology, this year\u2019s tally can\u2019t accurately be compared with previous counts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy shifting it from a nighttime to a daytime count, it\u2019s not an apples-to-apples comparison,\u201d said Christin Evans, a former Homelessness Oversight Commissioner. \u201cThe Point-in-Time Count is a flawed count, and there are other indicators that homelessness in San Francisco has actually gotten worse, not better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Point-in-Time Count is conducted every two years as part of a federally mandated evaluation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The data are often used to shape policy decisions.<\/p>\n

In years past, the data was collected at night by teams of city employees and volunteers in different zones in The City. This year, the count time was shifted from night to morning, and it included only city employees.<\/p>\n

In another first this year, teams were tasked with approaching and asking people to participate in a survey that could take up to 10 minutes to get through, depending on participants\u2019 answers,\u00a0instead of just visually counting people suspected to be homeless.<\/p>\n

The Examiner shadowed a team from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m.<\/a> during the Jan. 29 count.\u00a0Minor glitches were seen with a new tool used in the count this year \u2014 an app, Counting on Us, used for tallying and surveying unhoused people and providing team and geographic assignments to city employees.<\/p>\n

Kunal Modi, the city\u2019s chief of Health and Human Services, said city officials felt the changes to this year\u2019s count would actually help with the accuracy of the count.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe survey that is associated with the count used to happen after the fact,\u201d he said Tuesday during a press conference. \u201cWe did it during the count itself, so we could have more accurate data. We feel very positive about the integrity of the count and the ability for us to get really clean data to help us understand what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modi did acknowledge that there were \u201csome parts of the survey from 2024 or previous years that we won\u2019t compare to 2026,\u201d but he didn\u2019t clarify what parts those might be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PIT Count is just one indicator, and we look at it alongside a bunch of other data,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Mayor\u2019s Office said Tuesday that\u00a0compared with the previous count in 2024, this year\u2019s count saw a 4% decrease in homelessness overall, a 22% decline in unsheltered homelessness, and an 85% drop in people living in tents, from 650 in 2024 to fewer than 100 this year.<\/p>\n

Overall, homelessness had reached its lowest level since 2011, Lurie\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

But Evans and other advocates said that \u2014 aside from the comparison issues \u2014 the numbers don\u2019t match up with other metrics for measuring homelessness in The City, such as the shelter waitlist numbers. In March 2024, there were 51 people on the adult shelter waiting list compared to 412 people in March of this year, according to Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing data.<\/p>\n

\"Cricket<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cricket Miller of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing speaks with a homeless person sitting at a Market Street bus shelter during the Point-in-Time Count.<\/p>\n

Craig Lee\/The Examiner<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know from the service providers that are interacting with people struggling to stay in their housing and to access housing that the problem has not gone away,\u201d Evans said. \u201cIt\u2019s really counterproductive of the mayor to try to paint a different narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karin Adams, the director of programs at the Homeless Youth Alliance, said the 54% decrease in youth homelessness identified this year from 2024 is \u201cnot reflective\u201d of her organization\u2019s experience on the ground. If anything, she said, demand for its services has only increased in the last two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with dozens and dozens of youth experiencing homelessness, and we\u2019re an agency of 10 people, and our youth-only services are just picking up and gaining momentum and becoming busier and busier,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Adams, who said she participated in the count this year and in previous years in the Haight Ashbury-Golden Gate Park area, said the switch to morning from night was a significant hindrance in counting young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are hiding in the park; they are sleeping; they\u2019re not awake yet,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re really working diligently to protect themselves and not be seen or found, let alone counted and issued a very in-depth survey at that time of day.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that The City\u2019s homeless population has likely been more inclined to hide since the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which allowed for cities to penalize people sleeping or lying on sidewalks.<\/p>\n

\u201cYouth are especially vulnerable to policies implemented like Grants Pass,\u201d Adams said. \u201cSo they are hiding and engaging in riskier behavior to keep themselves safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams said that after one particularly difficult survey encounter, she and her team decided to stop administering the survey that morning altogether, with one member who had\u00a0formerly been homeless themself saying it felt like the \u201cdignity\u201d had been taken out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"SF
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A trio of wealthy men might soon be among The City\u2019s most influential politicians as\u00a0personal fortunes and outsider messaging reshape state, local races<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"Reports
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

New Bay Area Council Institute study says high taxes are slowing San Francisco\u2019s economic recovery amid battle over upcoming ballot measure<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"SFSU
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Graduate business program joining UC Law San Francisco’s 356,000 square-foot Academic Village this fall<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like it was traumatizing, and not trauma-informed,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

One portion of the unhoused population that did increase this year, according to the PIT Count data, was family homelessness, which increased 15% from 2024.<\/p>\n

Megan Rohrer, the policy director at Compass Family Services, a family homelessness organization, told The Examiner that figure is likely conservative based on the wide range of metrics needed to capture family homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard with PIT Counts to quantify homelessness, in part because the definition of homelessness is much more narrow than what we see,\u201d Rohrer said.<\/p>\n

Rohrer said that Compass partnered with HSH and Catholic Charities to perform a survey of homeless families on the family shelter list as part of the PIT Count and found that while they often stay in vehicles, that could change on any given night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we learned from them is some of them is that particular night, they stayed on someone\u2019s couch, as opposed to in their car,\u201d Rohrer said. \u201cThey were not included in this recent PIT Count number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such families are more \u201cmobile,\u201d Rohrer said, and are moving around a lot. Rohrer said that night alone, three families the team surveyed were in the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also noticed there were a number of families that were living in places not meant for human habitation, like in unconverted garages,\u201d Rohrer said. \u201cThere was at least one family that we called that was sleeping with an infant in a park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rohrer said that population has increased for a variety of reasons in the last couple of years, including changes to federal resources \u2014 such as funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development \u2014 and rising costs in general, from groceries to rent.<\/p>\n

Lurie\u2019s administration has focused on expanding services and shelter options in the last year for people experiencing homelessness who are also experiencing behavioral-health and substance-use issues, opening up a 24\/7 stabilization center in the Tenderloin and an involuntary sobering center in SoMa.<\/p>\n

But aside from a program moving families from living in RVs into shelter, there have been few efforts to provide more housing options and resources for homeless families.<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Brian Shepperd of Urban Alchemy speaks with Kurt Hergenroeather, 52, on Clay Street during the 2026 Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29.<\/p>\n

Craig Lee\/The Examiner<\/p>\n

Modi told The Examiner that the PIT data on that issue will inform how The City finalizes its upcoming budget proposal, set to be presented later this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cRV homelessness is intended to address one portion of the family-homelessness challenge, and we invested a lot in rapid rehousing in the last budget,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to lean into that in this upcoming budget, focusing on prevention, on more rapid rehousing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s in line with what Rohrer and other advocates have been calling for from The City, particularly with more housing subsidies for families that are living in smaller vehicles, not just RVs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that not everyone\u2019s struggling on our streets, behavioral health crisis, families and crisis, while families sometimes are missed, so we do see them, and we\u2019re going to make them a priority,\u201d Modi said.<\/p>\n

The current\u00a0budget proposal would cut resources<\/a>\u00a0for youth homelessness, leading to the closures of both Cole Street Youth Clinic at Huckleberry Youth Programs and the Michael Baxter Larkin Street Youth Clinic, which serve homeless youth.<\/p>\n

Sherilyn Adams, the CEO of Larkin Street Youth Services, said that while some progress has been made in the last year, such as the expansion of rapid rehousing subsidies for young people, they are also still seeing an increase in demand for their services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing more young people who still need housing, still need support,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Karin Adams said she feels that the lack of continued investment for youth homelessness is \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d and ultimately misguided.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people experiencing homelessness first experience homelessness as a young person,\u201d she said. \u201cThe lack of prioritization on young people is not doing the city of San Francisco or our generations of homeless folks and communities any favors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Preliminary data from this year\u2019s homeless Point-in-Time Count show reductions in homelessness throughout The City, according to Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[636,131613,1493,29418,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-314507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-daniel-lurie","tag-homeless-head-count","tag-homelessness","tag-kunal-modi","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}