Bramson: What we get when we count homelessness

If you ask the feds, homelessness is the worst it has ever been.

In December, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its annual homelessness assessment report to Congress. The report found that 771,480 people experienced homelessness in 2024, the highest number ever recorded in the United States. Given the continued severity of the affordable housing crisis, the ever-growing cost of living and the lack of resources to help countless families and individuals in need of specialized care and support, this tragic result is unsurprising.

To glean this information, thousands of volunteers, nonprofit workers, government employees and community leaders fan out into communities across the country over two-day periods to quite literally count the number of people living on the streets and in shelters. This point-in-time (PIT) count is paired with survey questionnaire results and then aggregated at the local, state and national levels to give us our most complete picture of homelessness.

For years, many have criticized PIT counts as our primary data collection tool. And with good reason: the methodology tends to significantly underestimate the total population, while ignoring current and significant trends that may impact the results. Given these factors and the reality that the federal government hasn’t ever meaningfully reacted to these numbers with more funding, the question of what we really get — other than describing the water for the people who are drowning — looms large.

But I’m taking a slightly different view of the work this time around. I think this year — with a new approach being implemented locally — the PIT count can be a real opportunity for members of the community to get closer to the suffering on our streets. More than any other volunteer experience, the PIT count creates a space where volunteers can really see the true nature of homelessness. Participants are partnered with trained professionals and head out into the places where people are living to ask them questions about how they got there and the challenges they face to get back into housing.

Far from the nameless and faceless social media warriors who sit back and post pictures of people suffering for content, volunteers in the PIT count get the visceral, firsthand experience to hear about the plight of their fellow unhoused residents. And while you might not walk away from the day with any profound answers, at least you will have a much more accurate understanding of how folks got to this point and what they believe they need to get out of it.

All this is to say, please consider volunteering for the PIT count this year. It will be conducted on Jan. 22 and 23, and anyone is welcome to participate. No experience is required, and I can promise you will gain real knowledge that will matter more and more as we head into the challenging time ahead.

San José Spotlight columnist Ray Bramson is the chief operating officer at Destination: Home, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness in Silicon Valley. His columns appear every second Monday of the month. Contact Ray at [email protected] or follow @rbramson on X, formerly known as Twitter.