Mayor Parker and 120 Volunteers canvass downtown Houston in an effort to get 2,500 homeless individuals off the streets
Communications Admin • May 10, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 – Houston Mayor Annise Parker personally led a team of volunteers canvassing the streets of downtown Houston to interview the City’s most vulnerable homeless individuals as part of Houston Registry Week. Over 120 volunteers are participating in this weeklong campaign in an effort to jumpstart the City’s plan to get 2,500 homeless persons off the streets by 2016.
“In Houston, we don’t just dream, but we achieve, and Registry Week is the first step towards achieving the goal of virtually eliminating chronic homelessness in Houston,” said Mayor Parker. “I am proud that as a community we have come together to align our resources and develop a comprehensive, compassionate plan that puts a face and name to the problem of homelessness and saves the taxpayers’ money.”
National studies show that chronic homeless individuals account for only 25% of a major city’s homeless population, but consume 75% of the homeless resources. In Houston, there are approximately 2,500 chronic and near-chronic homeless individuals, costing an estimated $103 million in public resources per year.
Houston Registry Week is the first of a three-prong, comprehensive, community-driven plan to reduce chronic homelessness in Houston that includes: (1) identifying and prioritizing the most vulnerable homeless individuals, (2) placing them into permanent housing, and (3) providing needed services and treatments.
Houston Registry Week is part of the national 100,000 Homes Campaign – a grassroots movement of over 175 communities to find and place chronically homeless individuals into 100,000 homes across the nation. As part of the campaign, volunteers are using a 33-item questionnaire to gather targeted information on the individual’s health status, institutional history (jail, prison, hospital, and military), length of homelessness, patterns of shelter or mission use, and previous housing situations.
“Registry Week is an exciting opportunity to create a comprehensive database of people living on our streets and in our shelters, enabling us, as a community, to know the homeless by name, to understand their stories, and to identify their needs,” explained Neal Rackleff, Director of the City’s Housing and Community Development Department. “The information gathered is crucial to our ability to place our most vulnerable into permanent housing with supportive services to break the cycle of homelessness.”
Under Mayor Parker’s leadership, Houston Registry Week is an initiative of the City of Houston in partnership with the Harris County Housing Authority, SEARCH Homeless Services, The Beacon, Coalition for the Homeless, Houston Housing Authority, Continuum of Care and other integral community partners.
“The Houston Housing Authority is committed to fighting homelessness in Houston and we are glad to work with great community partners that share our vision,” said Tory Gunsolley, Houston Housing Authority’s President & CEO. “By working with community partners we were able to get 101 homeless veterans housed in 100 days, and with this campaign we will be able to do even more to help Houston’s homeless receive the housing and supportive services that they need.”
Mayor Parker is scheduled to present the findings from Houston Registry Week immediately following the regularly scheduled City Council meeting on May 15, 2013.
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.
