The tide in homelessness has been turning in 2025 at the national level, after a 40 percent increase in national Point-in-Time (PIT) homelessness counts between 2016 and 2024. Nashville, however, has not been able to turn their upward trajectory around just yet.
On the contrary, Nashville’s PIT numbers have seen a 20-percent steady increase since 2022, which includes the latest 5.46-percent jump over the past year alone.
The reason these numbers matter have shown themselves over and over again: we see an increase in criminalization of homelessness. We see government actions that leave 80 Metro-funded temporary beds unoccupied for a year (in a functioning system those beds should have moved 200 people off the streets in 2024-2025). We see in-fighting and distrust among system builders. We need to talk about how all of that is impacting people living and dying on our streets in Nashville. So, let’s dive one more time into data and how the Office of Homeless Services (OHS) presents that data to draw a prettier picture that distracts from what we see on the ground.
The Point-in-Time count is a one-night count conducted by each Continuum of Care* (CoC) at the end of January each year. It is a federal requirement by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and only measures the narrowest definition of homelessness. The PIT count includes people sleeping in shelters, temporary housing and places not meant for human habitation. HUD also requires that CoCs conduct an outdoor count every two years. Nashville — with exception of the 2021 count due to COVID — has done an outdoor count annually and added outdoor surveys prior to 2022.
HUD uses this number to determine how many people are experiencing homelessness nationwide. The latest available national data shows that in January of 2025 745,652 individuals were included in the PIT count, which was down from the prior year when 771,480 people were counted nationwide.
While regularly watching PIT count results is part of what I do for this column, I am less focused on the validity of the actual numbers. Research has proven there are huge undercounts, but this data set can be useful when looking at overall trends and taken together with other data sources like the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), data reported by Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), and others such as McKinney Vento numbers from Local Education Agencies (LEAs).
The PIT numbers can also be used to see how we fare in comparison with other cities. It can help a community like ours to evaluate the effectiveness of our system and our approaches. But without real data analysis, which Nashville has not done, it is impossible to pinpoint what keeps us from seeing the same success other cities have seen. And the main question remains:
Why is Nashville seemingly unable to keep numbers steady even after millions of dollars in Metro investments, including hundreds of thousands spent on working with national consultants?
In what seems like an attempt to put any positive slant possible on this year’s PIT numbers, a chart OHS released only shows Nashville in comparison with two cities, specifically Denver and Charlotte, in their press release. The chart paints Nashville as having done better than average. OHS said they chose Denver and Charlotte because they had “available PIT data covering” the same time period.
“Denver and Charlotte were selected as two examples of growing communities with publicly available PIT data covering the same 2022–2025 period,” read an email from OHS. “The graphic was designed to provide a limited illustration of how Nashville’s trend compared with trends elsewhere while remaining clear and readable. It was not presented as a comprehensive or statistically matched peer-city analysis.”
The problem is that the press release was about the 2026 PIT Count (not the 2025 numbers) and 2026 numbers were actually available for both Denver and Charlotte. Both of those cities have significantly decreased their PIT numbers between 2025 and 2026 — Denver by 12 percent and Charlotte by 4 percent. Nashville’s PIT, however, increased by 5.46 percent during that same time period.
Here is the chart OHS presented in its press release. Except for some small discrepancies, which I regularly find when double-checking OHS data, the numbers are close enough to being correct but hide the fact that we have seen a 20 percent increase in homelessness PIT numbers in Nashville since 2022.
I also calculated the actual comparison to these two cities including the 2026 PIT numbers:
And when I went one step further and picked my own “comparable communities” — Dallas and Raleigh, N.C., I found that their average PIT count decreased by 23.1 percent from 2022-2025 and by a whopping 30 percent between 2022 and 2026.
Here is a chart I put together to offer a snapshot of different cities. I picked them randomly but marked in green the cities that Nashville has in the past used as comparison cities in different contexts. Not all of the 2026 PIT counts are available yet and some cities such as Austin did not conduct an outdoor count this year.
This type of public relations spin is exactly what feeds the already existing distrust between the community providers who work in the homelessness field and those who follow homelessness for other reasons and OHS leadership, which is directly overseen by the Mayor’s Office. It is also the reason why overdue data analysis needs to be done by a non-Metro entity and someone who is not paid by Metro.
Since the PIT Count numbers are not a true reflection of what homelessness in Nashville actually looks like, I wondered if the trend line was misleading as well. Other data sources confirm this: in examining recent HMIS database reports, OHS has presented in a similar format for the past three years and based on that, it seems that homelessness in Nashville has indeed increased year over year.
An independent expert needs to evaluate this data from different sources on a regular basis, we will not truly understand the full extent of homelessness in Nashville. To be fair, data collection has significantly improved since 2022, after HMIS was moved from MDHA to Metro and more dollars were invested in that data platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
This year, OHS offered a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document about the PIT count and posted it online. The problem is that OHS recycles some of the standard explanations that cities have used for years to explain away the increase in homelessness despite millions of new investments. Furthermore, OHS does not actually answer all the questions they posted.
For example, two questions were designated to ask why Nashville has seen an increase in the PIT Count despite increased public investments. For years, going back to when I first participated in the PIT Count in the early 2000’s, Nashville — as have other cities — have claimed an improvement in the methodology. However, when the city implemented significant methodology changes immediately prior to COVID and implemented an outdoor count survey, the numbers went down — not up.
Plus talking to local providers who have participated actively in the PIT count and the planning for it, the methodology has not significantly changed since 2022 to explain away a 20-percent increase in homelessness. Looking at the 10-year trend, the PIT count decreased by 19 percent between 2016 and 2022.
Yet, since 2022:
- The Metro budget increased from $2.4 million in FY2022 to $11.6 million in FY2026 by more than 380 percent;
- The federal CoC funding has increased by about 50 percent since 2022, from about $7.8 million to $11.8 million; and
- Metro invested at least $50 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to homelessness since 2022.
In comparison, between 2016 and 2022, Metro had a steady budget of about $2 million (sometimes slightly under), and the CoC funding increased from about $3.2 million to $7 million. In addition, the MDHA invested $10 million in COVID funds toward the CoC’s homelessness efforts between 2020 and 2023.
What is the problem?
Implementing and running a functioning system is not easy. But it is important to evaluate how effective Nashville is in addressing homelessness. If you are regularly reading my columns, you also know that I believe in a data-driven effort.
When we use data to cover up inefficiencies and forget to think about the people we are supposed to serve, we are not able to move forward and see the successes and reductions in numbers other cities and states have observed despite ongoing federal cuts to safety nets and increases in rents.
The good news is, I believe with solid leadership we can turn the tide, even in the current affordable housing crisis — but it is a long game, and politicians should refrain from their usual quick-fix, band aid schemes to appease voters rather than solve the issues surrounding homelessness. I believe our city’s neighborhoods, businesses — and especially the people who, in the face of inequity and a lack of safety net systems, are dumped onto the streets — deserve better. To do so, we need to rebuild a coordinated effort involving the community.
- Partner with a local university as a neutral third party to evaluate homelessness data — not just from one source but from diverse sources including HMIS, PIT Count, School data, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), etc. — to gain a real understanding of a) what homelessness looks like in Nashville.
- Evaluate through another independent partnership how dollars are actually spent.
Another observation is that I find that the community is willing to collaborate with each other and a trusted government partner, but presently too many agencies and departments are trying to find ways to work around OHS whenever possible. This is unsustainable and points to a real trust issue that cannot be easily fixed without a leadership change.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell better start paying attention whether he is serious about building a Nashville for everyone rather than a Nashville where more and more people are falling into homelessness.
- Continuum of Care (CoC) — A regional or local planning body that coordinates housing and services funding for individuals, families, and unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. A CoC creates a collaborative community effort that provides a strategic systems approach that focuses on connecting people to housing and services to end their homelessness.
Judith Tackett is a longtime homelessness expert and advocate for housing-focused, person-centered solutions. Opinions in this column are her own.