QuickTake:

Lane County’s unhoused population has gone down slightly, according to new data, as the county doubles down on efforts to quickly house people. But thousands of residents are homeless, living in emergency shelters or on the streets.

Lane County officials are reporting a year-over-year decline in the number of people who accessed or contacted services for the homeless.

Yet homelessness remains a crisis in the region, officials said, with thousands of homeless people living on the streets, staying in emergency shelters or sleeping in their vehicles. 

In Lane County in January, 4,490 people accessed services for the homeless, such as emergency shelter, officials said in a release Thursday, June 25. That figure is a 7.5% decrease from the number reported in January 2025.

“We certainly haven’t solved the problem, and there’s still a lot of people in need,” said Carly Walker, director of Lane County’s Homeless Management Information System. “It’s still a significant crisis that we’re working on.”

That also falls in line with preliminary national estimates that show homelessness rates may be on a slight downward trend.

The figures for both years come from the county’s Homelessness By Name List, which collects information from more than 30 community organizations that serve people who are low-income, in shelters or living on the streets.

That methodology is different from the homeless Point-in-Time count, which relies also on outreach workers to survey people who may not have contacted organizations for help. The county’s next Point-in-Time count, which the federal government requires once every two years, will be done in 2027. 

The county decided to forgo its manual Point-in-Time count for January 2026 and rely upon the data from Homeless Management Information System.

Takeaways from the data: 

  • 717 (16%) of the people were part of adult-child households, making up 253 families.
  • 326 (7.2%) of the people were in youth households, meaning they are all under the age of 25. The count found 305 youth households, including 44 households where all members were younger than 18.
  • 2,039 individuals (45%) were chronically homeless, which means they have a disability and have experienced homelessness for at least the last 12 months or have experienced at least four periods of homelessness totaling a minimum of 12 months in the last three years.
  • 64% of individuals were unsheltered, living on the streets, in a car or in a place not meant for habitation.
  • 31% were in emergency shelters or transitional housing. Another 5% were in alternative shelters that provide a safe place to sleep but are not technically classified as emergency shelters.

In the news release, county officials said the reduced figure comes in part through an increased effort to put unhoused people into permanent housing through the county’s diversion program. The diversion program looks for ways to eliminate obstacles to housing with support like aid for move-in costs, utility payments, recreational vehicle space fees and other needs. 

The program also works with behavioral health, healthcare and substance abuse treatment providers.

From January 2025 to January 2026, county diversion work aided 1,047 households exiting homelessness. Of those, 926 (89%) households remained housed for more than six months. 

Behind the numbers, providers of services for the homeless are working with an aging clientele. For example, 419 people (9%) were 65 and older. Another 751 people (17%) were 55 to 64 years old. That’s 1,170 people in homelessness who are 55 and older — 26% of the total. 

“Elderly individuals, people 65 and up, are now our fastest-rising demographic in our shelters,” said Jack Boisen, services director for the nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County, which runs homeless shelters throughout the region. “That’s something that is definitely concerning. We’ve now had to equip all of our shelters with extra canes and walkers and things like that.”

The numbers show a slice of the problem — but the full picture of homelessness in Lane County also includes cuts in state funding and, at times, reduced programs that serve people in homelessness. Because the data accounts for people in contact with services and programs that have fewer resources, that could explain part of the dip too. 

Demand for services remains high. Boisen said some of St. Vincent de Paul’s shelters, like the 310 Garfield Safe Sleep Site and the 410 Garfield Safe Sleep Site, have wait lists that can stretch out for three to six months. 

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Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.