According to an email forwarded to us concerning a media query on a recent speech by commissioner Alexis Hill saying that “we have reduced homelessness on the streets by 40 percent”, Washoe County is indicating that ”The reduction from 2021 (780 unsheltered people) to 2022 (417 unsheltered people) was a 46% reduction in unsheltered homelessness over the timeframe between before the Cares Campus opened and the Point in Time Count directly following that.”
These numbers are for people found during the point in time count not inside shelter services but during different outreach on a day for homelessness to be quantified.
Her comments came earlier this year before a legislative Senate Committee on Government Affairs. It’s odd given that she points to numbers which are from three years ago.
Washoe County decided not to do the full Point in Time Count in 2025, but in 2024 it counted 1,760 people, and 1,690 in 2023 which according to the latest numbers available is an increase and not at all a 40% decrease. The count was even lower in 2022 at 1605.
The count is divided between those receiving shelter services and those totally on the streets, but even that latter category went up from 2023 to 2024.