Long before the sun rose Thursday morning, 1,700 volunteers assembled at over 50 sites throughout San Diego County for the 2026 Point-in-Time Count.
The event, run by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, is an annual survey that aims to track homelessness, used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to allocate funding. This tracking effort has been ongoing since 2014 – only canceled in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and aims to provide a yearly minimum estimate of how many people are experiencing homelessness.
The Copley-Price Family YMCA was one such site with 85 volunteers split into teams and given maps showing the county tracts they were responsible for searching. In addition, they were given 7-Eleven gift cards and socks to be distributed to the people they surveyed.
Before the count started at 4 a.m., Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera addressed the room, reminding everyone that “The folks who you are counting are being told in more and more ways that they do not count. You being willing to go out there and ensure that they are not just counted as a number, but their stories accounted for, is so, so important.”
Site coordinator Sofia Cardenas from Alpha Project stressed the importance of having year-over-year comparison, saying “We can see trends and changes in the population. We can see what’s working, what’s successful.”
For instance, they have seen positive results due to increases in aid for homeless vets. “We know that those interventions through the VA, through our veterans consortium, are in fact being successful,” said Cardenas.
Last year, there was a 7% drop in the homeless population from 2024, falling from 10,605 to 9,905 people. While that result is encouraging, it was too early to proclaim it a trend until the 2026 count has been tabulated.
But how accurate is this data? Criticism of the PIT Count includes concerns that since it is a minimum count, it does not portray the full scale of the homelessness crisis.
Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)Once a year, volunteers fan out throughout San Diego County to find homeless people on the streets, in canyons and parking lots and more for the Point-in-Time Count on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy/Times of San Diego)But as Cardenas said, volunteers have “joined the technological age.”
That was in 2019, when the PIT Count switched from pen-and-paper recording to an online tool provided by Simtech Solutions. “One of the features that it does way better than anything we have historically is geotagging,” said Cardenas. “This way we have a much clearer description of where people are experiencing their homelessness. It’s also helped us reduce duplication significantly.”
Another challenge – people living out of their cars are considered unsheltered, but can be missed by volunteers due to the lack of visibility. In a training video provided by the regional taskforce, surveyors are instructed on how to identify signs of vehicle habitation, such as window coverings, fog and slightly open windows.
People staying in San Diego’s Safe Parking Lots are also counted. To ensure an optimal measure, that count takes place later in the evening as people are returning to the sites, such as H Barracks in Point Loma. In shelters, Cardenas explains, there’s a shelter bed inventory.
Beyond the city of San Diego, other areas of the county saw changes in 2025, whether from local, state or federal actions. Cardenas suspects that these regions “… felt some of the press as people started to move around due to new ordinances, new kinds of enforcement.”
Law enforcement presents an additional challenge for the PIT Count, as it often drives people into areas that volunteers are not able to survey. Encampment cleanings and policies, such as 2023’s Unsafe Camping Ordinance, push people out of downtown San Diego and other places more typically associated with homelessness. In East County alone, 13 camps were cleaned within the last month by the El Cajon Police Department.
For Cardenas, the issue is clear. “Our trained outreach professionals in every community know where people typically stay. If we’re going and dispersing those spots, we just have to find them elsewhere. Unless we’re bringing them indoors, it likely didn’t end their homelessness just asking them to leave one specific location.”
Volunteer Group 12, made up of Tasha Dewey, Jesus Aguilera, David Marquez and Fernanda Frakes, colleagues at 211 San Diego, spent two hours in Allied Gardens Thursday.
“A lot of the work we do is over the phone, it’s nice to connect face to face,” said Dewey, of his daily tasks with 211, a hotline that connects callers seeking aid in emergencies or with basic needs.
Group 12 circled shopping centers, and walked through parks. Initially, they recorded only one person sleeping in a car, but also noted a location with multiple RVs.
At 7 a.m., the team discovered multiple groups of people living in cars at College Grove Center. Among them was Matthew, who has been homeless for two and a half years, with his mother and Jackson, a pet parrot he has owned for five years. He reflected that they once had the opportunity to get an apartment, but were turned away because they refused to part with Jackson.
Mike, Stacy and Zeus, a German Shepherd mix, spoke with Dewey outside of Crunch Fitness. They explained that they frequent this spot to utilize the 24-hour gym’s showers. They share a membership with other parking lot regulars.
Though the count started slowly for them, by the time it concluded at 8 a.m., Group 12 had cleared its stock of 7-Eleven gift cards and pairs of socks, handing out every single one.
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