HUD Homeless Point-in-Time Count & Housing Inventory Count
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Every January, communities across the United States take a snapshot of homelessness on a single night. The HUD Homeless Point-in-Time Count & Housing Inventory Count brings together two complementary datasets from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count of people experiencing homelessness and the Housing Inventory Count (HIC) of the beds, units, and programs available to serve them.
Together, these datasets provide a practical way to examine both sides of the homelessness response system. Users can explore how many people are experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness, who is most affected, and how local housing and service capacity compares with need.
Understand Who Is Experiencing Homelessness
The Point-in-Time Count is an annual, one-night estimate of people experiencing homelessness within each Continuum of Care (CoC). It includes people staying in temporary shelter settings as well as people living in unsheltered locations.
The data provides more than a total count. Users can examine homelessness by household and population characteristics, including individuals, families with children, veterans, and youth. Demographic measures covering age, gender, race, and ethnicity make it possible to explore disparities within local homeless populations and understand how patterns differ from one community to another.
Because PIT data is available across multiple years, researchers, planners, nonprofits, and policymakers can also track changes over time. That makes it easier to identify whether homelessness is increasing or declining, determine where unsheltered homelessness is becoming more prevalent, and compare trends across Continuums of Care.
Measure Local Housing and Shelter Capacity
The Housing Inventory Count adds an essential second dimension by documenting the residential resources available within each CoC's homeless assistance system.
HIC data covers beds and units associated with programs such as emergency shelter, transitional housing, rapid rehousing, and permanent supportive housing. These measures help users evaluate the size and composition of local housing inventories and see how communities have expanded, reduced, or shifted their response strategies over time.
Analyzing PIT and HIC together can provide a clearer picture than either dataset alone. A community may experience rising homelessness while also adding permanent housing capacity, for example, or it may face a large unsheltered population relative to its available shelter inventory. The combined data helps surface those relationships.
Compare Homelessness Trends Across Continuums of Care
The HUD Homeless Point-in-Time Count & Housing Inventory Count is organized around Continuum of Care geography, the regional framework HUD uses to coordinate homelessness planning and services.
On Social Explorer, users can work with these measures geographically and over time to compare local systems, identify areas with high levels of unsheltered homelessness, track changes in supportive housing resources, and examine demographic differences in who experiences homelessness.
The dataset can support homelessness needs assessments, housing policy research, grant planning, program evaluation, community reporting, and broader analyses of housing insecurity and service capacity.
Explore HUD Homelessness Data with Social Explorer
Social Explorer makes the HUD Homeless Point-in-Time Count & Housing Inventory Count easier to explore alongside other housing, demographic, and socioeconomic data.
Map homelessness patterns, compare Continuums of Care, examine changes in housing capacity, and add demographic context without having to assemble disconnected datasets yourself. Whether you're evaluating local needs, studying disparities, or planning housing and homelessness programs, Social Explorer gives you the tools to turn HUD data into a clearer picture of what is happening in communities across the country.
Start exploring the data and see how homelessness, population characteristics, and housing resources intersect in the places that matter to you by signing up for a free trial of Social Explorer today.