Every January, local social service groups set out to count the number of homeless people in their communities. The federal government uses the results of this point-in-time count to determine funding for a range of services.
This year, Humboldt County saw a drop of almost 200 homeless people, compared to 2024: from 1,573 down to 1,383.
Robert Ward, housing and assistance coordinator with the county’s Department of Health and Human Services, said there’s good news in this data, but it’s harder to get accurate counts on folks living outside than those in shelters.
"We see a big drop in family homelessness, so [we're] not really sure what's driving that," he said. "Some of the family homelessness drop, a lot of it came from shelters and transitional housing, where we think we have a very accurate count."
It’s also difficult to know what specific factors caused those decreases.
In Trinity, Glenn and Colusa Counties, which track the data as a single entity, homelessness decreased from 227 in 2025 to 169 in 2026.
Tehama County also seemed to have a drop in its total number of homeless people compared to last year, but the county counted only sheltered people this year.
Last year, there were 334 homeless people counted, 108 of whom were sheltered. Tehama had 124 sheltered homeless folks this year.
Data was not available for Shasta, Siskiyou and Del Norte Counties.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2025 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, homelessness decreased nationally by 3% from 2024 to 2025.
Ward said one reason for these decreases in California might be the increased state funding to house people discharged from hospitals, called medical respite.
He said Humboldt County has also seen a decrease in homeless veterans, a population that has received sustained funding nationwide.
But at the same time, Ward said there’s still a big need for more housing.
"We know we need more capacity," he said. "But there's no new money, so even if we did get one-time funding, we really need more ongoing funding to sort of build up the whole system so we can serve more of the people."
In the meantime, he said, "we just have to keep doing what we've been doing, administering our permanent housing programs, trying to help people get off the streets into interim or permanent housing as quickly as possible."
This year's data is preliminary and still needs to be verified by HUD. The 2026 report hasn't been released yet.
