Morgan Foust - Homes First Volunteer
Aug 17, 2026
More people are becoming homeless every year - across the United States, in Washington State, and in Thurston County.
Our nation-wide data on people experiencing homelessness primarily comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). According to HUD, over 740,000 Americans were homeless on a single night in 2025, and approximately a third of those were unsheltered. This represented a 27% increase compared to 2013.
However, local agencies across the country unanimously agree that the HUD count is too low. The US Government Accountability Office said in 2020, “We found HUD’s count likely underestimated the homeless population.” HUD numbers rely heavily on a Point-in-Time (PIT) count: for one night each year, in January, volunteers across the country hit the streets and count the number of unsheltered homeless people they see. HUD combines this total with statistics provided voluntarily from local shelters to get a snapshot of homelessness for one night. However, volunteers during the PIT can easily miss people sleeping in vehicles, roughing it in rural areas in tents, squatting in vacant buildings, or staying in a motel for a few nights with whatever money they could save up.
When cities and counties perform their own homelessness counts using more thorough methods, they often discover that their local unhoused population is several times larger than the HUD statistics suggest. Washington State’s Department of Commerce estimates that over 150,000 Washingtonians experienced homelessness in January 2026, and another 38,000 only had access to unstable, intermittent, or unsafe shelter. (That is more than four times as large as HUD’s estimate of 31,700.) In Thurston County, WA DOC estimated 6,500 unhoused people that same month, and another 1,600 unstably housed. That’s 1 for every 38 people, and a 21% increase from 2016!
Experts broadly agree that the most important single cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing. Specifically, when rents rise faster than incomes, the budgets of lower income households become stretched thinner and thinner. Once rent exceeds about one-third (30%) of household income, housing becomes particularly precarious. All it takes is a layoff, an unexpected medical bill, or a sharp rent increase to push their housing costs beyond what they can afford, driving them to homelessness. According to the Thurston Regional Planning Council, approximately 32% of Thurston County households are rent-burdened (over 37,000 households).
Psychiatric and behavioral problems, including drug addiction, also contribute to homelessness rates, but they’re less of a contributor than housing costs. Suffering from a major psychiatric condition or using illicit drugs do increase the risk that somebody will experience homelessness, but these problems only affect a minority of the homeless population and are less likely to result in homelessness in places where there is an abundance of inexpensive housing. "The places with higher rates of mental illness and drug use aren't places where homelessness is higher," explains Gregg Coburn (University of Washington professor and real estate expert). "In places that are expensive, homelessness is high. In places that are cheap, homelessness is low."
People who are housed but cost-burdened, squeezed between rising housing costs and stagnant income, or are unstably housed in temporary situations, are at the highest risk of finding themselves homeless. Closing this affordability gap is a complicated problem, requiring coordination between communities, nonprofits, and multiple levels of government. There isn’t a single solution that works for all low-income people in all regions.
Non-profit affordable housing providers like Homes First, help bridge that gap. Organizations like Homes First provide permanent, stable, safe housing for low-income and very-low-income households. Homes First, and similar non-profits, offer a diverse range of housing types for families with children, single adults, seniors and veterans, the disabled, and people in recovery. Each resident in a Homes First home is one more person protected from falling into homelessness.
US Department of Housing and Urban Development. (May 2026). “The 2025 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress”. US HUD. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2025-AHAR-Part-1.pdf
US Government Accountability Office (13 August 2020). “Homelessness: Better HUD Oversight of Data Collection Could Improve Estimates of Homeless Population”. US GAO. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-433
Kofsky, J.; Rosenfeld, M.; Lee, J. (3 February 2024) “You can't be accurate': Annual count of US homeless population misses large numbers of people, experts warn”. ABC News. https://abcnews.com/US/accurate-annual-count-us-homeless-population-misses-large/story?id=106671876
Frost, Riordan. (12 February 2024). “Record Homelessness Amid Ongoing Affordability Crisis” Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/record-homelessness-amid-ongoing-affordability-crisis
Eckhart, Kim. (15 March 2022). “UW professor’s new book presents opportunity to ‘rethink housing’” University of Washington. https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/03/15/uw-professors-new-book-presents-opportunity-to-rethink-housing
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (Retrieved 1 July 2026). “Cost-Burdened Households”. TRPC. https://www.trpc.org/978/Cost-Burdened-Households
Pillai, A.; Saunders, H., and Rudowitz, R. (9 September 2025). "Five Key Facts About People Experiencing Homelessness". Kaiser Family Foundation. https://www.kff.org/medicaid/five-key-facts-about-people-experiencing-homelessness/
Coburn, G. & KingCountyTV. (19 July 2022). "Q&A: What are the root causes of homelessness in King County?". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0APR7dt-uZ8
National Low Income Housing Coalition. (March 2026). "The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes". NLIHC. https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/gap/2026/gap-report_2026_english.pdf