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The data for 2026’s Point In Time (PIT) Count was announced Wednesday by a slew of Sacramento City and County elected officials, giving us a snapshot of homelessness across the county.
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Unsurprisingly, the numbers are approximately 13% higher than they were two years ago in 2024, when Sacramento County joyously reported the largest drop in homelessness of any county in the state.
That rise in data could be because of the gap in time between the two count. But it’s more likely that the numbers in 2024 were just plain wrong, just as nearly everyone thought they were, despite howling protests from some elected officials who desperately wanted the data to be true.
Those numbers go straight to state and federal agencies for funding, so that 2024 drop slashed financial support for two years and crippled city and county efforts to provide shelter and services — costing at least $21 million in homeless program grants, according to a Sacramento State University researcher.
The most important data point
But more importantly, I think the mot important numbers from this year’s PIT Count are these: 44% of people surveyed were experiencing homelessness for the first time, 66% had been homeless for at least two years, and a whopping 78% were already living in Sacramento County when they became homeless.
That means that the prevailing narrative of homelessness being a choice, or that people come here purely for the services or the sunshine, is simply a myth.
The vast majority of Sacramento’s homeless population are Sacramentans who were our next-door neighbors, who teetered on the edge of poverty until falling off a financial cliff into homelessness.
Scary numbers
Those numbers ought to be scarier than anything else you hear about today. Too many Sacramentans are a run of bad luck away from homelessness — and there’s no safety net coming from the county, state or federal government to break their fall.
Other PIT Counts across the state are just now being released, so we don’t have a full picture yet. But the numbers for San Francisco and Placer counties were also released recently, and both of their overall numbers are down.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced an overall 4% decrease, and unsheltered homelessness decreasing by 22% since the 2024 count. Placer County, where they conduct a PIT Count every year, reported bnearly a 10% decline from 2025, overall.
Is Sacramento an outlier?
So Sacramento’s increase for 2026 could shape up to be another outlier for the state, but this time in the wrong direction.
Some good news is that the number of people living in shelters here is up, meaning more people are off the streets and have a roof over their heads.
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But that could also be a fluke: The PIT Count is always conducted in the winter when more people have sought inside shelter. That’s actually part of the reason why the PIT Count is done in January — because people are easier to count when they’re inside, and not living dispersed.
What does it mean?
What does this all mean? Well, it means the PIT Count remains an unreliable, faulty piece of data collection upon which nearly all of our homelessness funding is based.
Sacramento Steps Forward, the same group that conducts the PIT Count, also keeps tabs on the population with their Homeless Management Information System, a secure, shared information database into which local organizations input information about the services they provide and the people they serve. That data appears to be a much better, ongoing snapshot of the county’s homeless population, though HMIS is also not a perfect system since it relies on organizations regularly inputting data.
However, SSF chief Program Officer Trent Simmons told me that this is the first year they’ve seen an agreement in the data between the PIT Count numbers and the HMIS.
It could also mean that some of the things Sacramento has been doing to increase shelter capacity is working — and here I mean the city of Sacramento, not the county, because the county is absolutely lying down on the job despite having seven times the budget of the city.
Local politicians are blowing it
That, by itself, makes an excellent argument for state Sen. Angelique Ashby’s proposal, Senate Bill 802, which would create a state-mandated Joint Powers Authority — basically forcing everyone in the county and its cities to play together.
But most regional elected officials haven’t taken the suggestion kindly and several, including Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty, have opposed the idea.
So what do these numbers really tell us? Pretty much nothing we didn’t already know.
The city and county can’t work together to end homelessness on their own, nor are they willing to be forced into cooperation. The PIT Count is unreliable for accurate numbers, the HMIS is barely better, and yet we’re shackled to the PIT by virtue of federal and state mandates.
Homelessness in Sacramento County isn’t getting better, we’re seeing minimal progress in limited areas, and there’s still too much in-fighting going on behind the scenes. Meanwhile, our own neighbors, friends and family members remain in serious danger of losing their homes, with absolutely nothing to arrest their fall. Same as it ever was.
Read more Homeless count in Sacramento County increases 13% from 2024, report shows
This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 2:31 PM.