Is homelessness in California really declining? Here’s what the numbers show

The headline drop is real, but it needs context

California recorded about a 9% decline in unsheltered homelessness between the 2024 and 2025 point-in-time counts, and Gov. Gavin Newsom is treating it like a turning point.

The shift matters because it breaks a long stretch where street homelessness mostly moved in the wrong direction. Still, the number of people living outside remains higher than when Newsom took office in 2019, so it’s progress with an asterisk.

Unsheltered homelessness is not the whole picture of homelessness

When politicians talk about homelessness “declining,” they often mean unsheltered homelessness only. That’s the visible street population in tents, vehicles, and encampments.

Total homelessness includes both sheltered and unsheltered people, and those totals can move differently. A drop in street homelessness can coincide with an increase in shelter use, which is often a sign of movement indoors rather than a sudden end to the crisis.

The counts rely on a snapshot of volunteers

The data come from point-in-time counts, a federally required approach in which volunteers and outreach workers tally people experiencing homelessness during a specific window.

It’s the best standardized tool we have, but it’s still a snapshot, not a continuous census. People move, hide, relocate, or enter temporary spaces. That means year-to-year changes can be meaningful, yet still imperfect, especially for unsheltered populations.

Some counties count every year, and others do not

Here’s where it gets tricky. The federal rules require only that many jurisdictions conduct complete unsheltered counts every two years. Some counties choose to conduct annual counts anyway, while others stick to the necessary schedule.

That creates a patchwork in which statewide comparisons mix fresh counts with older numbers. It’s not fraud, but it does mean headlines can feel cleaner than the underlying methodology.

The 2024 and 2025 statewide comparison depends on a key assumption

To produce a statewide estimate, analysts sometimes hold certain jurisdictions flat when they don’t run a new count that year. In other words, a county’s 2025 value may be treated as identical to its 2024 value if a new count wasn’t conducted.

That approach is commonly used, but it can blur what actually changed on the ground. It makes statewide trend lines possible, yet less precise.

The decline looks strongest where local action intensified

Regional factors usually drive a statewide decline. When large population centers move, the state’s totals move. Many observers point to major local pushes that prioritized encampment resolution, interim housing, and faster pathways into services.

When those efforts focus on the most visible unsheltered areas, you see results in the street count first. It also explains why the decline can feel uneven depending on which city you’re standing in.

Enforcement rules changed, and that may affect the numbers

A significant Supreme Court ruling in 2024 gave cities broader authority to enforce anti-camping laws and clear encampments. That matters because it can reduce unsheltered homelessness in two ways.

It can push people into shelters or programs, and it can also push people out of sight during the count. If you’re trying to interpret the drop honestly, you have to consider both possibilities at once.

Newsom’s strategy shifted toward visible outcomes

For years, Newsom leaned on a familiar line about shelter versus housing. More recently, the messaging has sharpened around unsheltered homelessness specifically, because that is what voters see and what drives the most political heat.

You can feel the pivot in the way the state talks about results, accountability, and encampment plans. It’s a classic measurement move, focusing on the metric that people experience daily.

State spending is massive, and results are under scrutiny

Independent estimates from the Legislative Analyst’s Office and the state auditor suggest California has spent roughly $20–24 billion on housing and homelessness programs since 2019, a scale that has invited intense scrutiny of results.

That scale of spending has brought intense scrutiny, especially when the public still sees suffering across cities. Audits have repeatedly criticized the state for inconsistent tracking and unclear outcomes. When money is this significant, proof has to be equally clear.

Some programs show promise while data gaps linger

Not all spending is the same. Programs aimed at quickly converting buildings into housing and expanding supportive placements have reported substantial outputs.

But the broader system still struggles to produce comparable, cost-effective statewide metrics across agencies. I often think of it like a tech stack without unified analytics.

You can ship features, but if you cannot consistently measure impact, every debate turns into a narrative war.

The sheltered share has risen, which can be a good sign

One encouraging detail is that the share of people who are sheltered has risen from about 28% in 2019 to roughly 36% in 2025, even though it still sits below the roughly 41% sheltered share California saw in the late 2000s.

More sheltered homelessness can sound bad at first glance, but it can also mean fewer people sleeping outside. If the system is moving people from sidewalks into shelter beds, that’s a step toward stability, even if it doesn’t lead to permanent housing.

California still has one of the highest homelessness rates

Even with a decline in unsheltered homelessness, California remains an outlier nationally. The rate of homelessness per capita has been far above the U.S. average in recent counts.

That’s why a single-year drop, while important, doesn’t change the broader reality. The state can be both improving and still performing poorly compared with other states. Those two statements can be accurate at the same time.

There’s another pressure point shaping what the state can do next. Take a look at the Legislative Analyst’s projection of an $18 billion budget gap for California, even amid an AI-fueled revenue boom.

What the numbers suggest for the next chapter

The fairest takeaway is that street homelessness appears to be trending down, and that is meaningful. The caution is that point-in-time counts are noisy, policy changes can alter visibility, and total homelessness is the fuller measure of the crisis.

If the state wants this to be more than a talking point, it needs transparent tracking, durable housing exits, and results that hold up over multiple years.

This is one of those numbers worth knowing. A recent statewide UCSF study found that about 37% of homeless Californians reported using illicit drugs regularly at least three times a week in the prior six months, meaning most were not frequent users

What do you think about whether homelessness in California is really declining? Please share your thoughts and drop a comment.

This slideshow was made with AI assistance and human editing.

Read More From This Brand:

• This Program Houses Homeless Vets for Free. The Catch Is the Hard Part.
• 10 U.S. cities where aggressive panhandling has become downtown’s new reality
• 39 States Have Been Taking Foster Kids Social Security Checks for Decades