The estimated number of homeless people in Leon County declined for the second consecutive year in 2026, falling nearly 15% from last year and reaching its lowest level since 2022, according to Point-in-Time data.
The 2026 count identified 557 people experiencing homelessness in Leon County, down from 654 in 2025, a decrease of 97 people, or 14.8%.
The decline follows an even larger reduction between 2024 and 2025. Leon County’s count reached 831 in 2024 before falling to 654 the following year. From the 2024 peak through 2026, the county’s homeless estimate has fallen by 274 people, or 33%.
The trend generally mirrors Florida’s statewide numbers. Florida’s count declined from 31,362 in 2024 to 28,498 in 2025 and 24,588 in 2026. That represents a 21.6% decrease over the two-year period.
Leon County’s five-year numbers were 596 in 2022, 732 in 2023, 831 in 2024, 654 in 2025 and 557 in 2026.
What is the PIT count?
The numbers come from the annual Point-in-Time, or PIT, count, a federally mandated effort designed to estimate the number of people experiencing homelessness on a particular night.
The Big Bend Continuum of Care describes the PIT count as a “one-night snapshot” of sheltered and unsheltered homelessness conducted in late January. The local organization says the results are used to identify trends, direct outreach resources, support grant applications and help policymakers determine the scale and characteristics of homelessness.
For 2026, the Big Bend region’s count night was January 26.
The count includes people staying in emergency shelters and transitional housing as well as people living in places not intended for habitation, including streets, encampments, vehicles and other outdoor locations.
The two groups are counted differently. Sheltered numbers rely heavily on records maintained through the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, supplemented when necessary by information from providers. For unsheltered homelessness, outreach workers and volunteers canvass locations where homeless people are known or believed to stay and conduct surveys or observations.
HUD allows communities to use approaches including a complete census, counts at known locations or statistically based sampling. Communities must also attempt to avoid counting the same person more than once and may use statistical adjustments when portions of an area cannot be fully canvassed.
That methodology also means the PIT number should not be interpreted as the total number of people who experience homelessness during an entire year. It is an estimate of the population on one particular night and can be affected by weather, shelter utilization, volunteer coverage, participation by service providers and data quality.
Still, the latest Leon County numbers indicate a significant change from the 2024 high. The 2026 estimate is 6.5% below the 596 people counted in 2022, despite the substantial increase recorded during 2023 and 2024.
The latest results therefore put Leon County’s PIT estimate not only well below its recent peak, but slightly below where it stood four years ago.
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