San Mateo County’s official point-in-time homeless count, a snapshot census taken in one day of the county’s unhoused population, found an 18 percent increase from the count conducted in 2022.

As of Jan. 25, there were 2,130 people experiencing homelessness. That is 322 more individuals than the last count in 2022. Those living outside of a shelter, including people staying on the streets, in cars, RVs or tents, increased by 5 percent since 2022 to 1,145.

The total count included those who live outside in San Mateo County or are spending the night in a shelter. Local officials say there has been a 38 percent increase in people counted in shelters since the 2022 count.

A chart contained in the executive summary of San Mateo County’s 2024 point-in-time homeless count shows the total numbers of housed and unhoused individuals for every survey year since 2013. There was an 18 percent increase between 2022 and 2024, which the report attributes to more people finding temporary shelter. (Note that far right column is mislabeled 2022 instead of 2024.) (San Mateo County Human Services Agency)

“The county has increased its interim shelter capacity and also purchased several hotels that were converted into permanent supportive housing units for those who had been or were at risk of experiencing homelessness,” San Mateo County spokesperson Michelle Durand said in an email.

The point-in-time count, which is mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to happen every two years, provides a gauge to measure the success or needs of local service programs.

California has the nation’s largest number of homeless people. According to the count by the state, there were 181,399 Californians without homes in 2023, nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population.

San Mateo County’s full report can be found online.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.