Early Saturday morning, volunteers throughout Salt Lake County concluded this year’s point-in-time count — a sweeping effort in communities around Utah and the United States to tally how many people were unhoused on a certain night.
Tony Pizza, communications coordinator for the Salt Lake Valley Coalition to End Homelessness, said it’s too early to release any numbers from this year’s count. But he said crews who ventured out over three mornings did make some notable discoveries.
In some areas that have had many homeless people in the past, Pizza said, volunteers did not encounter as many as organizers expected. Other places, which had more moderate numbers previously, Pizza said, saw their populations grow.
Pizza said it’s too soon to draw conclusions about this shift. One possible reason, he explained, is that shelters in areas that have previously had higher populations could have become more effective in taking in these people. Some homeless individuals may have left due to a higher police presence, or some areas may have seen higher incarceration rates.
“We can’t say any (potential causes) definitively,” Pizza said. “What we can say is some of our higher-density areas seemed to have less interactions this year.”
Pizza also pointed out the resources that volunteers were able to offer homeless people. Several businesses donated more than $1,000, he said, for clothing or food.
“I would say that our donations were as high as they’ve ever been,” Pizza said. “They were much, much higher than last year.”
More and better-trained volunteers
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) A person bundles up at a park near the Jordan River in January.
Pizza was also impressed by the number of volunteers. More than 350 people assisted, he said, breaking organizers’ goal of 300. More than a hundred attended an in-person training to help them better understand how to engage with homeless people.
“The fruits of that are hard to see,” he said, “because the goal is that people have successful interactions.”
Besides counting the homeless individuals in a given area, Pizza explained, volunteers have a set of questions they ask, including how long the people been homeless and what conditions have contributed to their situations.
“What it helps us kind of delineate is whether a person is experiencing first-time homelessness or chronic homelessness,” he said, “and those are really key indicators for the system.”
One of the volunteers, Jenny Starley, said she has participated in the count for two years, searching in Salt Lake City’s Central City neighborhood, where she lives.
The count, Starley said, has given her a way to connect with homeless people in her community.
“I see them all through the year now,” she said. “People recognize me.”
Though Starley has been able to connect with homeless people, Pizza emphasized that volunteers are helpful even if they don’t find anyone. That could be a sign, he added, of effective systems preventing people from becoming or staying homeless in the areas they are assigned.
“When volunteers don’t find people to interact with, it almost feels like a failure,” he said. “Success is actually that you didn’t interact with anybody. It could mean that the system is working well.”
Will the numbers rise again?
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Victoria Daul and Shawn Spaulding interview a man in his tent during 2025's point-in-time count.
Bill Tibbitts, deputy executive director of nonprofit Crossroads Urban Center, said the count is important because it represents the only concerted effort to tally how many Utahns are sleeping outside.
But in years like 2025, when the count showed an 18% leap in homelessness across Utah, Tibbitts said people often think “efforts to combat homelessness are failing.”
That’s problematic, he said, because it doesn’t take into account the factors causing homelessness.
“You have to look at more,” he said. “You don’t try to solve illness by looking at what’s happening in hospitals.”
Tibbitts said he will be surprised if this year’s data doesn’t show another uptick, given the record numbers who have sought food in Crossroads Urban Center’s emergency pantries.
“What we are seeing is more people needing help,” he said, “which suggests that more people are at risk of becoming homeless.”