The number of Chicagoans living in city shelters or on city streets dropped 12% between January 2025 and January 2026 but remains near an all-time high, according to the annual survey used by federal officials to track homelessness.
Approximately 6,527 people in Chicago lacked a permanent place to sleep on Jan. 22, according to the annual “point-in-time” count, which sends volunteers out to count the number of unsheltered people on the city’s streets on a single night and is used by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials to determine federal funding levels.
A volunteer with Street Samaritans hands out a care package to a person camping underneath a bridge in November in the Chicago area. (Jacques Abou-Rizk / Medill Illinois News Bureau)
From the article:
The Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and other advocates for the unhoused believe the methodology used by the “point-in-time” count is woefully inadequate, since it does not consider people living “doubled-up” with friends or relatives temporarily to be homeless.
Instead, federal officials only consider people who do not have “a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence” outside a shelter to be homeless.
Approximately 58,625 people experienced homelessness in Chicago throughout 2024, according to the most recent data available and compiled by the coalition.
