New data shows 5,100 people became homeless in Clark County in 2024

About 5,100 people became newly homeless last year in Clark County, according to data released Friday.

A total of 8,894 people experienced some form of homelessness in Clark County in 2024, according to the annual report from Council for the Homeless. That’s a 2 percent increase over 2023, when 8,752 people were homeless.

The recently released Council for the Homeless data is different from numbers gleaned from the annual Point-in-Time count, which is conducted under guidelines from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on a single day in January.

Council for the Homeless’ annual report is more comprehensive. It compiles data from 44 organizations and tracks individuals. Leaders use the detailed information to assess how well homeless services are working and plan future services.

The new report found that certain populations were harder hit by homelessness:

• About 2,500 children are homeless, and 37 percent of those are younger than the age of 5.
• The number of older adults experiencing homelessness increased, with 1,219 seniors requesting shelter in 2024, up from 624 in 2023.
• People of color account for only 25 percent of Clark County’s population but 43 percent of those who were homeless in 2024.

Contrary to the widely held belief that homeless people move here from out of state, most are from Clark County. The new data includes the last permanent address for people before they became homeless: 4,902 had Clark County addresses. Meanwhile, 176 came from Portland addresses, 1 percent from California and 0.4 from Arizona.

The main reason people cited for being homeless was an inability to afford housing, with domestic violence following closely behind.

Services

In 2024, the Housing Hotline — a resource offered by Council for the Homeless that connects people to services and shelter — received nearly 70,000 calls.

Households stabilized through emergency rental assistance to prevent evictions dropped 71 percent between 2023 and 2024. But families stabilized through rental assistance increased by 49 percent and more veterans entered housing programs, according to the data.

“Behind every data point is a child, a parent or a veteran who now has a safe place to sleep,” Sunny Wonder, chief operating officer for Council for the Homeless, said in a news release. “We must continue to invest in what works and scale those solutions.”

Another bright spot: 91 percent of those who entered permanent supportive housing in 2023 remained stable for at least one year, and 87 percent of those housed in 2022 remained so after two years.

“Homelessness is not an individual failure; it’s a community challenge that requires community solutions,” Sesany Fennie-Jones, chief operating officer for Council for the Homeless, said in the news release. “If we want to see fewer people without homes in Clark County, we must act boldly and collaboratively to remove the barriers that keep people from safe and stable housing.”