Annual count shows drop in homeless population in El Paso County

According to this year's annual Point in Time census, fewer people in El Paso County are homeless.

The survey involves counting the number of homeless or unhoused people in the county each year on a specific date. This year, 56 volunteers interviewed people over a five-day period, including nonprofit organizations involved in outreach services and homeless people.

The results show a total of 1,146 people were homeless, a 12% decrease from the previous year. Of those, 259 were considered homeless, meaning they may be sleeping outside, in their cars, in abandoned buildings or other similar places considered unfit for living. That’s also a decrease of about 31% from 2023, or 115 fewer people. The rest of the people counted were either in emergency shelters or transitional shelters.

Additionally, this year's Point in Time survey counted 89 military veterans, 26 fewer than the previous year.

This year's figures continue a trend. The number of homeless people in 2023 was the lowest since 2016.

But not all indicators are down, and officials say the survey is just a snapshot.

“It’s important to remember that the PIT Count is just one piece of a much larger dataset we use to understand and address homelessness,” Kristy Milligan, president of the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care and CEO of Westside CARES, said in a statement.

This year, the number of people experiencing homelessness within a family increased by 12 percent, which the report notes is notoriously difficult to accurately count for a multitude of reasons.

Other data shows that people aged 45 to 54 make up the largest group of homeless people with 69, followed closely by those aged 35 to 44, with 65. The majority are men. Six identify as transgender and seven as non-binary.

The survey also collects information on race and ethnicity, but according to Continuum of Care, changes at the federal level for this year's census combined the race and ethnicity categories. The data shows that a large majority of homeless people identified as white (542). The category change mentioned above means that more people identified as multiracial than before, at 265.

However, even when combining race and ethnicity into one category, homeless people whose identities might include American Indian, Alaska Native, or Indigenous are twice as numerous as the general population. The same is true for Black or African American people, where fewer homeless people identify as white compared to the general population.

The Point in Time survey is being conducted by the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care, a group of agencies working to address homelessness. It is part of a national program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.