The Washington State Department of Commerce released the statewide results from the annual Point In Time count and its Snapshot of Homelessness report in August. While the growth rate of homelessness slowed in 2025, Commerce Director Joe Nguyễn said the numbers are still too high.
Point In Time Count Shows Continued Increase in Homelessness
In January 2025, 22,173 people were counted as experiencing homelessness in Washington, excluding King County’s unsheltered count, during the Point In Time count (PIT). Of those, 33% were experiencing unsheltered homelessness and 67% were experiencing sheltered homelessness in locations such as emergency shelters or transitional housing. It’s a 4.4% increase since 2024 and a 25% increase overall since 2022. From 2023 to 2025, the rate of increase was 8.7%.
The PIT count is a federally required count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. Though a valuable tool for comparing states on a single night every year, results are influenced by weather, shelter bed availability, number of volunteers, different methodologies used by counties, and other factors. That’s why Commerce also completes the Snapshot report, which uses consistent data methodologies to compare counties over time.
Commerce’s Snapshot Report Provides More Detail
The growth rate was similarly slower and the overall count higher in the Snapshot of Homelessness report, which combines client information from three state agency data systems to provide the most comprehensive estimate of the homeless and unstably housed population in the state. That report found 158,791 people in emergency shelters or unhoused in January 2025, a 2.2% increase from 155,356 in January 2024 and an 8.9% increase from 145,736 in January 2022. That data includes the King County figures.
“Too many people in our communities don’t know where they’re going to sleep at night, or if they’ll be safe when they try to rest,” Nguyễn said. “Thanks to support from the Legislature and Governor Ferguson, Commerce is investing in programs that help people stay housed, and provide a path back to stability for those who need it.”
The Legislature invested about $1.8 billion over the 2025-27 biennium into housing and homelessness, including Commerce programs. The Legislature also added new funding streams and adjusted some programs, including allowing jurisdictions to conduct the unsheltered PIT count every other year instead of annually.
Spokane’s Point In Time Count Reveals Mixed Results
The city of Spokane released the results of its annual Point In Time count in July. It shows a decline in the overall number of people experiencing homelessness for the second consecutive year.
This year’s count was executed on January 22 and surveyed 1,806 total individuals experiencing homelessness across Spokane County, Spokane, Spokane Valley, Airway Heights, and other parts of the county. In 2024 the total was 1,993 individuals and in 2023 the total was 2,390 individuals. While the numbers are declining, the total remains higher than in 2022 and before.
The city says organizers used an improved methodology this year to enhance accuracy of the data collected. Unlike previous years, the 2025 count deployed volunteers with outreach teams to known areas where unsheltered individuals were located, rather than simply sending volunteers to search on their own. This change helped reduce the likelihood of people being overlooked and allowed those known to be outdoors an opportunity to be surveyed, ensuring data collection was more reflective of the population outreach teams are regularly engaging.
The 2025 count showed an increase in the number of unsheltered individuals, up to 617 from 443 the previous year. The city says the increase may be attributed, in part, to the new survey methodology focused on deploying volunteers and outreach teams to encampments.
However, the number of people experiencing sheltered homelessness, those in an emergency shelter or transitional housing, decreased from 1,578 people to 1,189 people. The city credits its work to help people transition from emergency shelters into permanent stability through the new navigation center-specialized site model. We spoke extensively about the system in the May episode of At Issue: Can We Fix Downtown?
“It’s encouraging to see that overall homelessness has declined for a second year in a row,” said Mayor Lisa Brown. “The numbers reinforce what my administration has said from start – that consistent engagement and a focus on navigating people to treatment, case management, and transitional housing is the right approach.”
This year’s county also showed a 16% vacancy rate in emergency shelter and inclement weather beds across the system. Many of the vacant beds were in youth and young adult shelter space.
Other Spokane 2025 PIT Count Data Points
- 106 total veterans, a decrease from 121 last year
- 81% of those counted were over the age of 25
- 43% of adults surveyed reported suffering from serious mental illness
- 52% of adults surveyed reported suffering from a substance use disorder
- 9% of adults surveyed reported being survivors of domestic violence
- 70% of people surveyed lived in Spokane County before becoming homeless; 14% were from Washington; 14% were from outside Washington