2025 Portland Tri-County Point in Time Count

Overview

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities that receive Continuum of Care (CoC) funding to conduct a Point in Time Count (PITC). Starting in 2023 Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties have collaboratively endeavored to conduct a Tri-County coordinated PITC to fulfill this requirement. HRAC contributed to all phases of the 2023 Tri-County PITC and is again collaborating with the counties for all phases of the 2025 PITC.

Enumerator Resources

Click through here to visit our enumerator resources pages - including a recorded training and enumerator FAQ document that will be updated throughout the PITC.

Text in jpg format with dates for 2025 point in time count

General Info:

Researchers:

Marisa Zapata, Franklin Spurbeck, Minji Cho

Project Administrator:

Carolyn Niehaus

Status:

In-Progress

Tri-County Point in Time Count (PITC)

The Tri-County regional Point-In-Time Count (PITC) will take place from Thursday, January 23, to Wednesday, January 29, 2025. Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties are working together to plan and conduct the PITC in coordination.

Decisions made by PITC Planning Team at recent meetings

Updated 01/18/2025

The table below represents decisions made by the PITC Planning Team across recent meetings. The categories are listed alphabetically.

Category	Status Update
CountingUs (Mobile App) Set Up	CountingUs set up is underway; the app is ready for enumerators to log in.
Contracting for CountingUs	The contract with Simtech for the use of CountingUs will be executed through Washington County.
Doubled Up Data Collection	PSU has reached out to McKinney-Vento Liaisons in each county about participating in conversations about the PITC and doubled up data collection. Data collection from school districts to being the week of January 20th.
Durable Goods Incentives	Durable goods kits are being produced by PSU team.
Enumerator Assignments	To sign up as a PITC volunteer, please go to: bit.ly/PITCVolunteers After you have completed that form, we will send an email with a link for you to use to choose your volunteer date, time, and area of town.
Enumerator Training Dates	Training took place: Wednesday, 1/15, 11am to 12:30pm Wednesday, 1/15, 4pm to 5:30pm Saturday, 1/18, 10am to 11:30am
Enumerator Trainings	Trainings for all enumerators was conducted online.
Inclement Weather Plan	February 22 to 28 are selected as the contingency dates, in case of any weather or public health disruptions.
HMIS Shelters - Data Collection	HMIS data will be used for PITC in HMIS participating shelters. Data quality review and reporting plans are in progress.
Non-HMIS Shelter - Data Collection (Multnomah County only)	Unsheltered survey questions will be used for non-HMIS participating shelters within Multnomah County.
Participating Sites	PSU is working with participating sites to support the 2025 PITC. If you are, or would like to be, a participating site and have not yet received additional information, please email pitc@pdx.edu
PITC Communications	PSU has created an email for all PITC related questions and communications: pitc@pdx.edu If you are an outreach worker, service site, or would otherwise like to be involved in the 2025 PITC, please reach out to us at pitc@pdx.edu
Unsheltered Survey Items	Survey questions finalized and being proofed. Surveys will be available in: English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Vietnamese.
Unsheltered Survey - Supplemental Data	Counties agreed to the use of administrative data to supplement information collected in the survey.
Use of Mobile App for Data Collection	The counties have agreed to use the CountingUs mobile app.

HUD Should Help Communities Better Leverage Data to Estimate Homelessness

A November 2021 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), this study examines “communities’ approaches for counting people experiencing homelessness and HUD’s guidance for using these approaches.” It also articulates some information about what is known relative to funding sources around PIT counts.

screen shot of GAO-20-433, HOMELESSNESS: Better HUD Oversight of Data Collection Could Improve Estimates of Homeless Population document

Better HUD Oversight of PIT Data Collection Could Improve Estimates

A July 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), this study examines efforts to measure homelessness and HUD’s oversight of these efforts and factors associated with recent changes in homelessness.

HUD Point in Time Count Overview

This page, hosted by HUD, links to notices about the 2023 count and guides, tools, and resources that HUD provides to support the administration of the Point in Time Count.