Sonoma County’s annual homeless count came back with a number officials were glad to see: 1,951 people, one fewer than last year. But inside that flat topline is a figure pointing the other way. Counters found 168 homeless young people this January — up from 115 a year ago, a 46% jump — while the money that holds the county’s homelessness system together drains away.
The preliminary 2026 Point-in-Time Count, conducted across the county on the morning of Jan. 30 and released June 23, holds onto last year’s 23% drop — 507 fewer unsheltered people than in 2024 — which brought homelessness to its lowest level since the count began in 2007. Volunteers, paid guides and professional outreach teams counted 1,098 people living unsheltered — in cars, parks, on sidewalks or in abandoned buildings — down 2% from 2025. Another 853 people were in emergency shelters or transitional housing, up 3%.
“Considering the precariousness of the economy and the state and federal funding losses we’ve already experienced, I am heartened by the fact that this didn’t translate to more people being unsheltered in our county,” said Supervisor Rebecca Hermosillo, chair of the Board of Supervisors, in the county’s announcement. She credited new permanent housing programs and sites that opened last year with keeping the number flat.
The youth number
The count sorts people into subpopulations the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development requires counties to track, and two of the four moved hard. Homeless families — defined as at least one adult with at least one child under 18 — fell from 78 households to 42, a 46% drop, with every family found in a sheltered setting. Homeless youth went the opposite direction, from 115 to 168. That’s 11 unaccompanied children under 18 and 157 transition-age youth between 18 and 24.
The county’s release doesn’t say what drove the youth increase. But two years ago, the system built to serve those young people lost the nonprofit running its youth emergency shelter. Social Advocates for Youth — the Santa Rosa organization behind the Dream Center shelter and other youth programs — went bankrupt and closed in 2024. County Homeless Coalition records say the closure created “unanticipated disruptions,” and the coalition chose to rethink how youth service gaps would be covered — inviting other providers to step into SAY’s projects, including youth street outreach and rapid rehousing for transition-age youth. The Dream Center shelter itself was a harder problem, set aside in that first round because it’s a facility, not just a program.
The other increase came among chronically homeless people: those homeless at least a year, or at least four times in the past three years, who have a disabling condition. That group grew 12%, from 730 to 818. Veterans held roughly level at 104, up five from last year.
Money going out the door
County officials spent much of the announcement warning that the flat number may not survive the budget math. Nolan Sullivan, director of the county Department of Health Services, said provider organizations absorbed 17% budget cuts last year as state funding fell, while many of the county’s own positions sat unfilled.
“Despite those fiscal challenges, together with the community we’ve built new housing programs, implemented the Keep People Housed eviction prevention system and redesigned our Coordinated Entry process — ultimately achieving net zero year-to-year increases in homelessness,” Sullivan said in the release.
Michael Gause, the county’s Ending Homelessness program manager, was blunter about where things are headed. He said “the ongoing reductions at the state and federal levels and broader economic headwinds probably means that stasis was short lived,” pointing to the county’s By-Name List — a live, name-by-name roster of people experiencing homelessness, now in its second year of use across all five regions of the county. That list stood at 2,196 people on June 17, about 245 more than the January snapshot.
What comes next
The Point-in-Time Count is a single morning’s census, and the county is upfront about its limits — it counts who volunteers can see and who’s in a shelter bed that night, working from maps that city and nonprofit partners drew up in advance to cover every part of the county where people were known to be living outside. The By-Name List runs all year, which is why officials watch it between counts. The full report, due in the fall, will break the numbers down by city and region and add demographic detail and causes of homelessness.
Until then, the county holds two numbers that don’t agree. January’s count says the system held. June’s says it’s already slipping.