For the first time since 2020, the region’s annual census shows a year-over-year decline in homelessness across San Diego County.
The Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which oversees the annual point-in-time count, tallied a 7 percent drop in both unsheltered and sheltered homelessness.
The Task Force also reported an overall 13.5 percent overall drop in homelessness in the city of San Diego and a 3.9 percent decrease in street homelessness. The group also cheered overall decreases in cities including Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Encinitas and Oceanside – and regionwide drops in homelessness among families, youth and veterans. Escondido and National City also saw drops in street homelessness.
Task Force CEO Tamera Kohler attributed the overall reductions to dynamics including state investments in Encampment Resolution Grants and more targeted services for groups including families and veterans. She noted that both cities with and without controversial homeless camping bans saw drops in homelessness. The bans have led some unsheltered people to move from place to place to avoid police.
“We saw a reduction across the region, in nearly every community,” Kohler said.
The outliers included El Cajon, which saw 21.6 percent year-over-year increase in street homelessness. Volunteers also counted more unsheltered people in Poway and Fallbrook, communities that historically have had very small homeless populations.
The drops that the Task Force found in most of the county don’t match up with other data points – and raise questions about the impacts of camping bans in cities including San Diego.
The Task Force separately reports a 3 percent spike in people accessing homeless services during the past federal fiscal year. The more than 23,000 people who received services is more than double the 9,905 counted during this January’s homeless census.
The gulf between those two numbers drives home the reality that the point-in-time count represents a minimum snapshot of the region’s homeless population.
During the same period, Task Force data also revealed the number of newly homeless San Diegans eclipsed the number of newly housed ones by about 4,200 people. That trend continued in January, the month that volunteers fanned out throughout the county to tally people living in vehicles, canyons and on sidewalks. In January alone, 191 more people fell into homelessness than found homes though the trend flipped in November and December for the first time in two years.
Another data point highlights continuing challenges. Task Force data showed a 7 percent spike in vehicle homelessness, which often represents those who are newly unsheltered. Homeless residents who can’t get help while they are sleeping in their vehicles can be forced onto the street, becoming more vulnerable and more difficult to help.
Kohler noted that the Task Force tallied more people staying in vehicles last year too and emphasized the need for safe parking programs that can offer safe havens for this population.
The city of San Diego is opening a new lot near the airport this month, a move that will also facilitate more police enforcement of people sleeping in vehicles.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who has pushed for more homeless services and championed a 2023 camping ban, has repeatedly hinted at the positive results in recent days while noting his administration’s investments in addressing the problem.
“I think we’ll soon have data that will show that what we are doing in the city of San Diego is working,” Gloria said during a press conference last week.
Yet the reductions in the city also represent the loss of hundreds of shelter beds, including some not operated by the city, even as the city has opened new shelters and expanded safe campgrounds that don’t count as shelter in annual point-in-time counts per federal rules.
Kohler said the latest point-in-time count results point to both to both some progress and a large homeless population that still needs help.
“We still have lots of people experiencing homeless,” Kohler said. “We still have tons of work to do.”
Charts by Jakob McWhinney.
If you don’t find the people, the numbers go down.
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Just before Gloria’s second mayoral victory, Larry Turner pointed out that homeless people who are on state property don’t count as being in the city of San Diego. Turner took reporters to camping sites next to or under freeways (state property) to demonstrate Gloria’s method for reducing homelessness. Push them onto state property.
Any chance we could push them a little further south into Mexican property? If they can’t afford to live in San Diego, living in TJ makes more sense as it is way more affordable (across the board) than here!
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nice job on those charts, Jakob. you do it all.
I’ve done the Point in Time count twice. It may have value but is is not in any way scientific or a reliable count. Volunteers are sent to places where they’d found homeless people the year before. And the year before. And so on. We are told not to go into camps or strike out on our own. The people guiding volunteers are honest about the methodology not being scientific or ambitious – they told us it’s how HUD wants it done. Both years, there were teams that come back having found no one where they were sent. Anyone who cites it as anything but a legacy count either does not understand how it is done or is citing the numeric equivalent of anecdotes.
A reported 3.9% decrease in street homelessness. Thats the number that matters.
If they (influenced by our local politicians no doubt) consider people sleeping in their cars and the Balboa Tent Cities as not street homeless, then the number of homeless as far as what Joe Q. Public considers homeless has gone up.
Someone try to explain to me how I am wrong in that.
Hey kids! I’m an old Ironman who walks and runs in PB every day. I see with my eyes and according to the doctors at Shiley, I have excellent vision more homeless than in the past 40 years. So, this is bogus at least in PB. Dan D2 SDCC Candidate 2016
Why do voters support a Gloria puppet and GOP Lincoln Club gladhander in D2 SDCC 2026? WHY?