A survey conducted in Montgomery County, Maryland, on a frigid night in February shows a 26% drop in the number of people who are homeless.
The number of families without a roof over their heads fell even more sharply, down by 42% from last year.
The numbers come from Montgomery County’s annual point-in-time survey, when teams of volunteers and nonprofit groups fan out across the county, documenting the number of people without shelter. The count includes people who are housed in shelters and those found sleeping outside overnight.
Referring to the plunge in the number of homeless families counted this year, Christine Hong, the director of the county’s Services to End and Prevent Homelessness said, “That’s huge.”
“The fact that we how so many people over the last year is truly a result of the SHaRP program and all the work done and the support from our county,” Hong said, referring to the Short-Term Housing Resolution Program as the primary driver of the reduction in the number of homeless people.
The SHaRP program provides security deposits, the first month’s rent and up to 12 months in rent subsidies to individuals and families.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich also referred to the SHaRP program during his weekly briefing with reporters on Wednesday.
“By moving families into permanent housing faster, we reduce the trauma of homelessness for children, and we save the taxpayers from the higher costs of the long term emergency shelters we use,” Elrich said.
Elrich wants the county council to keep a one-time boost of $2 million to the program’s funding in the fiscal year 2027 budget.
Without the additional funding, he said, “our capacity to help new families will drop by 68 households; those families will end up right back in our shelters and overflow motels.”
Hong said there’s another area that needs work: The number of chronically homeless people has increased, and she said part of the issue there is a lack of housing available for individual adults.
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