By Erica C. Barnett
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority released a high-level summary of its biennial “point in time count” of the county’s homeless population Tuesday, after a delay of several weeks that gave the KCRHA time to add more context to the numbers in response to concerns from homeless advocates that the news looked too much like doom and gloom.
The KCRHA applies statistical sampling methods to interviews rather than doing a true “one-night count.” The report includes a housing and shelter inventory, which uses on data from the county’s Homeless Management Information System to determine the number of shelter beds and housing units in the system. Unlike most other jurisdictions, the KCRHA does its estimate every two years, rather than annually.
This year, the KCRHA estimated that there are 18,365 people experiencing homelessness in King County, of whom 11,829 were unsheltered. That’s up from 16,868 and 9,810 in 2024, respectively—a nine percent increase in overall homelessness, but a 21 percent increase in the number of people living unsheltered. Additionally, the report found that “the inflow into homelessness continues to outpace exits.” In other words: More people are becoming newly homeless or returning to homelessness than are getting (and staying) housed.
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Specifically, according to the report, around 17,000 people exit the county’s homelessness system, meaning that they stop using homeless services, while around 18,000 enter it.
The KCRHA changed the way it counts the Hispanic/Latino population this. year, which appears to have resulted in a spike in the Latino number and a reduction in the number of “white” people experiencing homelessness. (We’ve asked what accounts for the change). Twenty-four percent of people living homeless in King County identify as Latino (the same percentage as identify as Black), compared to less than 16 percent in 2024. Every non-white racial group was overrepresented among the homeless population, including Native and Indigenous people, who make up 0.4 percent of the county population but 4.2 percent of all unhoused people in the county.
Overall, the number of shelter beds in the county declined by nearly 12 percent over the past year, going from 5,958 in 2025 to 5,269 in 2026, in part because of a disproportionate reduction in family shelter beds. At the same time, the number of permanent supportive housing units—permanently affordable apartments for people with disabilities, which currently includes severe addiction—increased by 155 last year and 561 in 2025.
A press release from the KCRHA characterized the growth in homelessness as a slowdown in the rate of increase, from 26 percent between 2022 and 2024 to 9 percent between 2024 and 2026. However, as noted above, the increase in people living unsheltered on the streets increased more dramatically than the overall number of people experiencing homelessness, suggesting that the increase in visible homelessness is directly tied to the declining availability of even basic shelter.
You didn’t need to publish this article. We all know it’s gotten much worse.
We’ll never house our way out of a drug abuse crisis. Involuntary 90 day stints in drug rehab are the only possible solution.