2025 Point in Time count found significantly fewer homeless families using emergency shelter
The result is a marked reduction in unsheltered homelessness and fewer single adults experiencing homelessness overall.
The Point in Time (PIT) count is conducted in communities across the country each year to better understand the depth and breadth of homelessness in their community. Hennepin County oversees the planning and operations of the Point in Time (PIT) count in our region. Conducting the PIT count gives a one-day “snapshot” of homelessness from one year to the next. The 2025 PIT count focused on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.
Census aimed to learn where people spent the night on January 22
A team effort of more than 50 people, including county staff, volunteers, and nonprofit shelter and outreach staff, found that 2,651 people staying in shelters and transitional housing programs and 427 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. Those preliminary numbers compare with 3,370 and 496, respectively, in 2024.
The number of families in shelter decreased from 2,187 to 1,538. This 29.7% change was a result of targeted efforts to help families quickly transition from homelessness to housing, to prevent evictions and help families find other options in their networks.
Even in the midst of a spike in demand in 2022, 2023 and 2024, Hennepin County was able to maintain our shelter all practice for families with children, with a goal that no child sleeps outside.
Unsheltered homelessness has decreased 33.5% since 2020
The number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness peaked in the 2020 Point in Time count, when 642 people were in unsheltered settings. This year’s count marks a 33.5% decrease in the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness since 2020, and a 14% decrease from in 2024.
The change is partially a result of improved and diversified shelter settings that our nonprofit partners provided with county support, as well as the consistent presence of street outreach workers who help shoulder the administrative burden of transitioning into housing.
Staff continue to walk alongside people in shelters and on the street as they work to find housing. The county has continued to increase investments in increasing the quantity, quality and variety of affordable and supportive housing options for people exiting homelessness.
Since 2020, we and our partners have helped house more than 9,500 people. Of those, 96% have remained out of the homeless response system. Over time, we are housing more people each year than we did the year before.
In 2024, we helped transition 2,526 women, children and men from sheltered and unsheltered homelessness into permanent housing, the highest number yet.
Get more information
Minneapolis/Hennepin County PIT Count reports (HUDExchange.info)