An annual glimpse into the size and demographics of the unhoused population in Santa Cruz County offered mixed results in the county’s efforts to house all its residents.

Santa Cruz County saw a slight uptick in the number of homeless people living in the county compared to last year, as well as an increase in the number of homeless seniors and people with a disability who were homeless for over a year, according to the preliminary 2024 Point-in-Time count released by the county’s Housing for Health Division.

The numbers come as the state is looking at a reduction in funding for housing and homeless programs in next year’s budget that could impact future progress.

The county did see sizable reductions in the number of youths who do not have children experiencing homelessness, which were down 40 percent in the one-day count in January. The category measures people between the ages of 18 to 24.

Overall, the count recorded 1,850 homeless individuals residing in the county, a 2.6 percent increase from 1,804 unhoused people in 2023. Just 365 were sheltered in this year’s count. The number of unsheltered individuals saw a slightly larger increase of about 4 percent, increasing from 1,426 in 2023 to 1,485 in 2024.

An imperfect picture

The Point-in-Time count is a rough snapshot of the population in the county without permanent housing, including those with shelter and those without. It does not include people who are in medical facilities or staying with family or friends and experts consider it an undercount because of those and other factors. Measured on any given single day in the last 10 days in January, it is part of a national count reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The preliminary numbers also showed an increase of 32 percent in the number of people experiencing long-term substance abuse disorders and a 5 percent rise in the number of homeless individuals with severe mental illness. The numbers will be finalized in late July.

“(W)e have a long way to go before we can claim success, and there are many challenges ahead including the anticipated loss of critical state funding.” Robert Ratner, Housing for Health director

The number of people older than 55 experiencing homelessness went up from 347 to 481, an increase of more than 38 percent. The number of homeless families was reduced from 76 to 52, with four unsheltered families.

The number of homeless veterans decreased from 159 to 72, but 56 were unsheltered.

Despite the overall increase, county Housing for Health director Robert Ratner said the numbers were close to last year’s record low since the count was standardized in 2011.

“Last year’s numbers were the lowest ever recorded in Santa Cruz County, so it was gratifying to see that work validated in this year’s count,” Ratner said.

“However, we have a long way to go before we can claim success, and there are many challenges ahead including the anticipated loss of critical state funding,” he said.

A ‘crisis’ decades in the making

The count, released June 12, comes about a month after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision, which proposed more than $1.7 billion in reductions to housing programs, including the state’s Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program, known as HHAP.

The revision eliminated all of the grant program’s next round of funding and $300 million already budgeted for bonuses for local jurisdictions that met certain goals, according to the League of California Cities, a nonprofit that advocates at the state level for local control.

“The decision to not invest in another round of HHAP funding poses a devastating threat to homelessness programs statewide and puts at risk the health and safety of thousands of unhoused residents,” said Cal Cities executive director and CEO Carolyn Coleman.

“Not only does the proposal eliminate one-time funding to address homelessness, but it also ignores the growing consensus around the need for ongoing funding to address this decades-in-the-making crisis,” Coleman said.

The proposed cuts also included hundreds of millions of dollars in behavioral health programs, including eliminating over $132 million from the Behavioral Health Bridge Housing Program, a grant program that provided funding to counties to help house people with behavioral health issues.