When Mayor Mike Johnston declared a homeless state of emergency on his first full day in office, the city center was full of encampments.
People struggled to survive, many suffering mental health crises in full view of the public. Business owners were frustrated that their doorways were blocked, and shoppers and diners had seemed to disappear. Concerns about crime reached a fever pitch.
Johnston pledged to end unsheltered homelessness by 2027, shutting down encampments and moving people into shelters and supportive housing.
Now, two years later, Johnston’s administration claims the city has “recorded the largest multi-year reduction in unsheltered homelessness in American history.” Unsheltered homelessness refers to people living outside, including in tents, cars and other spaces not meant for human habitation.
The claim is based on data from the federal Point in Time count, a one-night tally of every person experiencing homelessness in the country, as counted by local communities. In Denver, it’s carried out by the Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative.
The survey showed there were 785 people living without shelter in the city of Denver in 2025, compared to 1,423 in 2023 — a reduction of 45 percent. But experts have long cautioned that PIT data is highly variable and may not reliably show changes in the level of homelessness, with the survey affected each year by factors like the weather.
Still, the Johnston administration is taking credit for the reduction, said Cole Chandler, the mayor’s senior advisor on homelessness.
The struggle for housing is still real in Denver.
Even as the number of people living on the street has fallen, other types of homelessness have grown. More people are living in shelters, and the total number of people without homes has risen during Johnston’s first two years. Many people have lived in group shelters for years.
It’s also worth noting that the Point in Time count is imperfect. PIT collects information from a single night only and does not reflect how many people experience homelessness throughout an entire year. This year’s data may have been skewed by cold weather, which can drive people from “unsheltered” encampments into city shelters.
“The PIT Count brings together a tremendous amount of resources for a one-time study of what our city is experiencing on a given night, and we believe that is extremely valuable,” wrote mayoral spokesperson Jon Ewing. “It is also a snapshot. Just as valuable is the data collected year-round and the insight that provides to us as we’re making decisions on how to best address this issue.”
Homelessness continues to be a top concern for residents, Ewing said. For the thousands of people living on the streets or in shelters, it’s a life and death issue that better-looking data does not immediately fix.
“This PIT Count says what we already know to be true, which is that street homelessness is down dramatically in Denver,” Ewing wrote. “It is a marker. Not the finish line.”
Denver is leading other cities in reducing unsheltered homelessness.
Other large cities have also recorded double-digit drops in recent years.
Houston saw a 33 percent drop from 2020 to 2024, though it hadn’t yet published its 2025 data as of Friday. Dallas saw a 28 percent drop from 2021 to 2025.
Denver also had the fewest people sleeping outdoors, compared to other cities that have published 2025 data. Some Western cities, like Phoenix and San Diego, counted several thousand unsheltered people.
Overall homelessness has still risen in Denver. Here’s why.
While there may be fewer people living in tents or on sidewalks, overall homelessness is high. Denver has more people experiencing homelessness than at any time in Johnston’s term.
In 2023, there were 5,818 individuals experiencing homelessness in the city of Denver. As of the 2025 count, there were 7,347.
Many of these people are living in shelters. The city has spent tens of millions opening non-congregate shelters, where people have individual rooms with doors.
The mayor hoped to move those people into permanent housing, but the process has been slower than anticipated.
With proposed federal funding reductions, moving people into permanent housing could prove even harder, Chandler said.
Denver has also continued funding group shelters, where thousands stay each year.
Chronic homelessness rose from 1,698 people in 2023 to 2,118 people in 2025.
But the number of people experiencing homelessness for the first time fell from 2,402 in 2023 to 1,729, even as eviction cases in Denver County Court soared.
The Point in Time count offers useful — but — imperfect data.
Every January, outreach workers and officials spread out across the city to tally the number of people living on the streets and in tents, cars and other places not meant for human habitation. They also count the number of people staying at shelters
The numbers are released in June. And about a year later, the federal government uses that data to estimate the total number of people living without homes in the United States.
The count has some limitations.
For example, when it’s cold, as it was during the 2023 and 2025 count, people living outside often come into indoor shelters and are counted as “sheltered” instead of “unsheltered.” In 2024, the weather was warm, and a larger percentage of people were staying outside.
