Point in Time Count

The Point-in-Time (PIT) count is a nationwide annual count of all people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. The count includes people who are staying in shelter, transitional housing, or unsheltered settings. Hennepin County oversees the planning and operations of the count. Data from the count gives us a one-day snapshot of homelessness from one year to the next. The 2026 count will collect data about who was experiencing homelessness in Hennepin County the night of Wednesday, January 28. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires the count to take place during the last 10 days of January.

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2026 planning

Our goal for the count is to better serve people experiencing homelessness by:

Asking only for new information that adds to what we already have in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)
Leveraging connections to existing homeless response system staff who are trained and familiar to people experiencing homelessness

Unsheltered count

2026 unsheltered count is canceled

To prioritize the safety of clients, volunteers, and staff, Hennepin County will not conduct any 2026 Unsheltered Point-in-Time (PIT) count activities.

All unsheltered PIT count activities scheduled for Wednesday, January 28 through Friday, January 30 are canceled. Activities related to the sheltered count will continue as planned.
Please do not use the HMIS PIT workflow or PIT Live survey tool for households who slept in an unsheltered location in Hennepin County.
If you are part of a street outreach team or work at a drop-in center, continue focusing on helping clients get indoors and connected to services.
If you signed up for a shift or volunteer spot, please do not report for your scheduled time.

We recognize the time and effort you’ve invested in training and preparation. In the coming weeks, we will assess whether completing an unsheltered count later this year is feasible and useful.

Thank you for your understanding and continued commitment to supporting our community.

Sheltered count

If you are a shelter or transitional housing site that uses HMIS, please keep HMIS enrollment data updated and accurate. The Institute for Community Alliances (ICA), our HMIS system administrator, will reach out if data corrections are needed. If you are a site that does not use HMIS, you will need to submit aggregate data about the households who were in your program on the night of the PIT Count or complete surveys for each household. We will share more information via PIT.HIC@hennepin.us this winter. Reach out sooner if you have questions.

2025 results

The 2025 Point in Time count found significantly fewer homeless families using emergency shelter, a marked reduction in unsheltered homelessness and fewer single adults experiencing homelessness overall.

Census aimed to learn where people spent the night on January 22, 2025

A team effort of more than 50 people, including county staff, and nonprofit shelter and outreach staff, identified 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% decrease was a result of targeted efforts to help families quickly transition from homelessness to housing, to prevent eviction 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 the 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 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.

Housing ends 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, our community is 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

Infographic: 2025 Hennepin County Point in Time Count (PDF, 1MB)
Minneapolis/Hennepin County PIT Count reports (HUDExchange.info)

Media inquiries

For information about the count, contact Maria Elena Baca by email at maria.baca@hennepin.us or by phone at 612-348-7865.

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