Homeless report shows 20% spike from previous year, highlights growing unhoused subpopulations

An unidentified person lays down next to a fan inside the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center in Las Vegas. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)

A 13-year-high in the number of unhoused individuals counted. A growing number of families with children. An increase among people experiencing homelessness chronically. Black individuals over-represented among the unhoused population.

Results of Clark County’s annual homeless census released last week showed an overall 20% increase from the 2023 census and revealed alarming trends about who is experiencing homelessness in Southern Nevada.

Southern Nevada’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count, an annual snapshot of homelessness on one particular night, identified 7,906 unhoused people. The previous year counted 6,566 people.

Even with data showing a rise in homelessness, and increases to several subpopulations, the Southern Nevada Homelessness Continuum of Care Census Report noted that “no PIT Count can fully capture the complete extent of homelessness due to several factors.”

Simply put, the numbers are likely an undercount.

The county, which conducted its count Jan. 25 , tweaked methodologies in how it conducted the count and Jamie Sorenson, the director of Social Service for Clark County, thinks the higher number is partially from “a more accurate count.”

The recent results showed the largest number of people experiencing homelessness since 2011 when 8,003 were counted that year, according to the 2015 Southern Nevada Homeless Census and Survey .

The number of people counted had been trending downward.

“The observed parallels between annual median household prices, Fair Market Rents, and the Point- in-Time (PIT) Count suggest that these factors may be interconnected and reflective of broader trends affecting the Clark County community,” according to the report.

When there was a steady decrease in people experiencing homelessness from 2018 through 2021, it was during a time “Clark County experienced only modest increases in median household prices,” the report noted.

The number of people being counted began to rise beginning in 2022, when housing “prices surged by over 35 percent.”

Sorenson pointed to Nevada’s severe housing crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic. The county lacks 60,000 units specifically for low-income households, he said.

While not mentioned in the report, between the count conducted in early 2023 and the count in January of this year, pandemic-era eviction protections expired – legislative efforts to keep protections in place were vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo – and the availability of rental assistance dollars used to help keep people housed was scaled back.

Housing groups and legal aid providers warned without legislative reforms to the eviction system, homelessness rates would increase.

‘Serious concern’

One of the more notable disparities in the data was in the racial breakdown.

Clark County’s total Black population is 12%, but Black individuals make up 42% of the unhoused population.

Though Black people have been overrepresented in previous counts, the rate has increased.

The number of Black people experiencing homelessness hovered around 37% in the previous two count results. Before that, the rate was 32% in both 2021 and 2020.

Sorenson said the figure was a “serious concern” and more work needs to be done to understand the trend.

“I think for us and for our (Continuum of Care board) this needs to be an elevated priority,” he said. “I think we need to really pull in experts from the community to help us understand where we can begin to address whether it is matters of systemic racism or a need for cultural services.”

There is a greater percentage of families with children experiencing homelessness than there was in the prior count.

An estimated 19% of the total count in 2024 were families, compared to 12% the year before.

The most recent report doesn’t include the total number of families and Sorenson didn’t have the figure readily available.

The county previously found during its PIT count in 2023 there were 794 families identified, a 54% increase from 2022.

The report also found 34% of people were experiencing homelessness chronically, or those who have been unhoused for at least a year and struggle with serious mental illness, substance abuse or a physical disability.

In the previous year there were 1,857 people, or 28% of the total count, found to be chronically homeless.

While the report indicates that  64% women and 36% men were homelessness, Sorenson clarified with Nevada Current that breakdown was specifically for those using shelter space.

Unlike previous years, the report doesn’t show the overall gender breakdown of those experiencing homelessness at the time of the count.

‘More work to do’

Clark County said it added 1,670 non-congregate shelter beds since 2023, a 62% increase from the previous year.

That includes its Navigation Center , a 70-bed Motel 6 property in East Las Vegas converted into an intake center for unhoused individuals. Sorenson said the county is trying to open an additional center by the end of the year.

T he report also showed among those counted that 53% were unsheltered on the night of the 2024 count, a 7% decrease from the count conducted in 2023.

Deputy County Manager Abigail Frierson attributed the county expanding the supply of non congregate shelter beds for the decrease of the unsheltered rate from the previous year.

“This year’s Point-in-Time count shows that our efforts to expand shelter options are having a tangible impact,” she said in a statement. “While the number of individuals living unsheltered remains high and we continue to work to secure permanent, stable housing, it is encouraging to see that we are steadily moving residents off the streets and into safer environments.”

Not all those beds were being filled during the time of the PIT count. The report notes on that night there was an 85% utilization rate among shelter beds.

Emergency shelter beds and rapid rehousing beds had the highest usage with 86% and 100% respectively.

Only 71% of available permanent housing beds – 1,523 out of 2,134 – were full during the night of the count.

Sorenson wasn’t sure why those beds weren’t being used at the time of the count. The county, he said, has worked to improve efforts to connect unhoused individuals to available beds “but we have more work to do.”

Though many data points showed an increase among the unhoused, there were a few subpopulations that had decreases including veterans experiencing homelessness, which decreased 46% from the previous year.