A Strong Start to Our 40th Anniversary Year
Catherine Villarreal • January 31, 2022
A note from Mike Nichols, our President and CEO
This year — 2022 — marks 40 years for the Coalition, and we got our 40th anniversary year off to a great start.
Last week was one of the busiest weeks for the Coalition in recent memory. Here's what we accomplished together.
- We led the annual Point-in-Time (“PIT”) Count. We coordinated 480 staff and volunteers across the more than 3,740 square miles of Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties to survey people experiencing homelessness. The count is so important to gauge the success of our programs, to know where more help is needed — and to demonstrate to our community members experiencing homelessness that we care about them. We expect to publicly release the results of the 2022 Count in March.
- Read our press release about this year's Count here.
- Harris County Commissioners Court affirmed their commitment of $35 million for phase 2 of the Community COVID Housing Program (CCHP), on top of the $35 million the City of Houston plans to allocate. The County’s vote followed months and months of conversations and negotiations with City and County officials. Phase one has been a huge success: we have far surpassed our goal of housing 5,000 people and have already housed more than 7,000! (This includes people permanently housed in Permanent Supportive Housing and in Rapid Re-Housing as well as those prevented from falling into homelessness via Diversion.) In phase 2, with the funding from the County, City and State, we will house another 7,000 and continue to be a model for the rest of the country – officially, now that we are part of the national House America Initiative.
- Read our press release here.
- Watch a video featuring CCHP phase 1 clients here.
- Read the cover story from the Houston Chronicle here.
- Houston City Council approved the construction of the Housing Navigation Center. The navigation center will be an essential piece of the homeless response system — a place where unsheltered people can stay for a short time as we finalize their permanent housing arrangements. It will allow us to decommission many more encampments and do so more quickly.
Milestones that we met last week will allow us to help thousands of people experiencing homelessness over the next few years and were the culmination of countless hours of work from the Coalition staff and the partners and stakeholders of The Way Home.
We look forward to celebrating our 40th anniversary year with you throughout 2022 and continuing our shared work to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.
Houston, Texas (February 24, 2026) – This week, the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County (CFTH) is leading the annual Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey (“PIT Count”) to determine the number of people experiencing homelessness across Houston and throughout Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties. “We may see a slight uptick in the number this year, but we have a plan,” said Kelly Young, President & CEO of CFTH. “With the support of the City of Houston, Harris County, and private funders, we have been piloting new interventions to shorten the length of time people in our region experience homelessness. With adequate funding, we look forward to expanding those interventions to help people regain lives of self-determination.” CFTH coordinates the Houston region’s public-private homeless response system, The Way Home . Through this collaboration, The Way Home partners have successfully housed over 36,000 people since 2012. CFTH will release the results of Houston’s 2026 PIT Count in the summer, following independent verification by an epidemiologist. These findings will provide insight into how factors such as increases in the cost of living and the end of federal pandemic relief funding have impacted homelessness in our region. More information about the 2026 Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey The PIT Count offers a snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in our region on a single night. This year, the “night of record” is Monday, Feb. 23. CFTH determines the number of people staying in shelters on that night by pulling records electronically from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) . The unsheltered count will be conducted on the following days, from Tuesday, Feb. 24 to Thursday, Feb. 26. More than 400 volunteers and staff of local nonprofit service provider partners will canvass the three-county region to survey people living unsheltered, using an app on their mobile devices. Results from the 2026 PIT Count will help gauge the progress of The Way Home’s ongoing collaborative efforts. It will also help CFTH and partner homeless outreach teams understand geographic shifts and target their outreach throughout the year. The PIT Count illuminates specific programmatic gaps and provides additional information needed to allocate resources most efficiently. The PIT Count is a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) for the annual Continuum of Care (CoC) funding process. HUD furnishes the majority of funding for programs that provide housing and supportive services to people experiencing homelessness in the region. In 2024, HUD granted more than $71 million to the Houston area.
As lead agency to The Way Home Continuum of Care (CoC), CFTH is working with local governmental entities to advocate on behalf of people experiencing homelessness to ensure their needs are being considered as winter weather affects our region. We will make frequent updates as we receive information. Please check back often for the latest information. Last updated 02/01/2026 at 12:00 p.m.
While our system has helped thousands of people move from homelessness to housing, this year’s results highlight the need to broaden our approach.
