Spokane conservatives question accuracy of 2025 homelessness count

(The Center Square) – Despite recording the second consecutive decline in homelessness since 2016, the Spokane City Council’s conservative minority questioned that data on Monday – one of the two members had participated in the Point-in-Time Count last January, calling the feedback “unreliable.”

The 2025 Point-in-Time Count released Monday recorded 1,806 people experiencing homelessness in January, a 10.6% dip compared to 2024. City staff were supposed to lead a committee meeting on Monday with the data but fell behind on the agenda, citing last-minute changes they made that morning.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires grant recipients to conduct a biennial survey of the homeless population to receive funding and monitor the crisis nationwide.

The Spokane Business Association recently funded its own study that suggested just over 50% of people living on the streets moved there after becoming homeless. Some officials dismissed it as inaccurate, with the 2025 PIT count putting the figure at 14%, but others also questioned that point.

“I do have a question on this because our 2023 [PIT] Count specifically has different numbers,” Councilmember Jonathan Bingle said. “Last known residence, the question that we asked in the point-in-time count that we were given, two-thirds said that they were not from Washington.”

According to the 2025 PIT Count, about 70% of respondents reported living in Spokane County before becoming homeless; 14% came from Washington, while 14% came from outside the state. The SBA survey suggested that 50.2% of their respondents moved there after becoming homeless, with 66% born outside of the state; however, concerns have been raised about the accuracy of this feedback as well.

The HUD-mandated count is only one of many estimates and is also largely considered to be inaccurate. Dr. Robert Marbut, President Donald Trump’s former homelessness czar, who led the SBA study, recommended repeating his survey for more accurate results in the summer.

According to a slideshow on the 2023 PIT Count, which Bingle cited, about 60% of respondents reported another state as their last residence. Dawn Kinder, director of the city’s Neighborhood, Housing, and Human Services division, said that particular slide only included 173 surveys out of the 2,390 people recorded that year, adding she would revisit it “to see what we can deduce.”

“What was displayed on the screen is that the question that has been asked is, ‘Did you live in Spokane County before you became homeless?’ But in fact, that’s not the question that we were instructed to ask because I participated in it this year,” Councilmember Michael Cathcart said.

He said the question asked this year was, “Did you live in Spokane County before you became homeless this episode?” While Kinder disagreed, Cathcart said that ‘this episode’ could imply “a substantially different connotation,” but he also raised other concerns with the 2025 PIT Count.

He said surveyors were assigned to large areas, his being the Hillyard Neighborhood. Cathcart thinks that with the time allowed, his group walked only about 15% of that area. He said the city might have overlooked a lot of people and that feedback he did receive was often “unreliable.”

“Call me judgmental if you want,” Cathcart told Kinder, “but it’s pretty clear kind of what the issues are that they’re dealing with, and yet their answers do not reflect those issues … I think there needs to be a way to collect the observers’ information as a part of the point in time.”

Julie Garcia, executive director of Jewels Helping Hands, told The Center Square last fall that she had concerns over the lack of observational data in the 2024 PIT Count. A representative with the Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium said the same: that the lack of that data had undercounted the population at the time compared to when both had participated in the past.

Communications Manager Erin Hut told The Center Square that the decision was made before Mayor Lisa Brown took office. She said 2023 was also the only year since at least 2019 that the data included observational counts, which changed due to concerns over duplicate counts.

Hut provided a table showing that the 2023 data included 1,665 surveys and 238 observational counts, totaling 1,903 people, despite the PIT count placing the figure at 2,390 people that year.

She said that, like in 2024, the 2025 PIT Count wouldn’t include observational counts. The Center Square asked Garcia and the employee from the housing consortium whether they had concerns over the accuracy of this year’s data, but didn’t receive a response before publishing.

“We totally acknowledge that we know the point in time is not a complete picture,” Kinder said. “That’s part of why we come before you quarterly with our system performance reports.”

While the most recent PIT count included 1,806 individuals experiencing homelessness, a separate HUD report found that over 7,000 people accessed housing services in Spokane across much of last year.