Five Years Later - How the COVID-19 Response Strengthened Homelessness Solutions

On this World Health Day – and after five years of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic, we reflect on our system’s work through the Community COVID Housing Program (CCHP).

Launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, CCHP was an unprecedented effort to quickly and effectively house people experiencing homelessness while responding to a public health crisis.

With an influx of emergency relief funding, CCHP was both an opportunity and a challenge. It heavily informed how we approach homelessness today, offering lessons that continue to guide our strategies.

Creation of CCHP

CFTH, in collaboration with the City of Houston and Harris County, launched the Community COVID Housing Program (CCHP). This $65-million initiative aimed to serve 5,000 individuals in phase one of the program and 7,000 individuals in phase two, focusing on:

Permanently housing those experiencing literal homelessness, including individuals in shelters, encampments, or on the streets.
Preventing potential homelessness resulting from the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Challenges and Collaboration

One of the biggest hurdles in launching CCHP was the speed at which our system had to act. While urgency was necessary to help those most vulnerable, we moved faster than what our internal systems were prepared for.

Despite the challenges, CCHP demonstrated the power of cross-sector collaboration. Our partnership with the City of Houston and Harris County was essential in making the program work. Their willingness to adapt allowed CCHP to start up quickly and reach thousands of people at risk. Additionally, CCHP strengthened our partnership with The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD, Houston’s local mental health authority. Their various teams played a crucial role in ensuring that people experiencing homelessness had access to mental health services and supportive care.

This level of collaboration set the tone for how we work together today. It demonstrated that when government agencies, nonprofits and service providers align behind a shared goal, real solutions emerge at scale.

Lessons Learned

Balancing Urgency with Strategic Planning: Moving fast without alignment can create long-term challenges. While rapid action is essential in a crisis, accountability, clear expectations and strong coordination must always be prioritized.

Shaping Core Strategies: CCHP played a key role in refining our outreach and encampment decommissioning, both of which remain essential to our homeless response system today.

Matching the Right Interventions: Placing people in the first available housing option isn’t always the best solution. By focusing on matching individuals with the right intervention type, we saw improved long-term housing stability and greater system efficiency. CCHP allowed us to “pilot” rapid-rehousing and diversion interventions, strategies that we aim to continue building on as we enter the next phase of our work.

Sustainable Solutions Require Flexible Funding: The influx of emergency relief dollars provided the flexibility to implement innovative solutions promptly, highlighting the importance of adaptable funding mechanisms beyond moments of crisis. This flexible funding allowed us to serve more people in a quick and efficient way, something that our current federal funding just isn’t allocated to do.

Impact

In total, over 18,300 people experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk were housed or diverted from homelessness since the implementation of CCHP in October 2020.

Even though the program has ended, CCHP fundamentally changed how our system addresses homelessness. It strengthened our ability to have strategic conversations with our funders and partners, ensuring that decisions are driven by data and made with long-term sustainability in mind.

Most importantly, CCHP reinforced that homelessness is solvable when we have the right resources, strong collaboration and a commitment to solutions that are proven to work.

While the urgency of COVID-19 has passed, the urgency to end homelessness remains. By continuing to apply what we learned and build on the work, we are aiming to create a system where anyone experiencing homelessness has a safe place to sleep tonight and a home within 30-90 days.

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CFTH Leads 2026 PIT Count of People Experiencing Homelessness

By Catherine Villarreal • February 24, 2026

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.

Preparing for a Winter Storm

By Catherine Villarreal • January 21, 2026

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.

Press Release: CFTH’S 2025 Point-in-Time Count Results Highlight Shifts in Homelessness Across Houston

By Fryda Ochoa • September 9, 2025

While our system has helped thousands of people move from homelessness to housing, this year’s results highlight the need to broaden our approach.