Seattle/King County shelter and housing beds vs. people counted homeless, 2012-2025

What this chart asks

Did King County's shelter and housing capacity keep pace with the number of people counted homeless?

Why it is shown this way

• Beds and people share a unit (one bed per person), so one axis lets readers compare capacity with need directly.
• The y axis starts at zero.
• Temporary and permanent beds are shown separately because only temporary beds shelter people who are counted as homeless.

Chart annotations

These markers provide relevant context for interpreting the chart. Their timing or position does not, by itself, establish causation.

2021: sheltered-only count

2021

No unsheltered count was done in 2021 (COVID-19), so the 2021 count of people is far too low.

2022: new count method

2022

King County began estimating the unsheltered population with respondent-driven sampling; counts before and after are not directly comparable.

Data and accessibility

Download chart data · Open accessible table · Download PNG · Download SVG

Dataset king-county-homeless-count-beds, analysis king-beds-vs-count

Sources

This chart draws on the sources of the dataset versions it visualizes.

Seattle/King County homeless count and shelter and housing beds, 2012-2026

1. HUD, 2007-2025 Housing Inventory Count by CoC (AHAR Part 1 data) Year-round, seasonal and overflow beds by project type for each CoC and year. Downloaded from the Internet Archive because huduser.gov blocks scripted requests; contentDigest is the SHA-256 of the downloaded workbook (2,598,803 bytes).

   Retrieved October 10, 2026. U.S. government work (public domain). Public domain; not rehosted here.

   Archived copy captured October 10, 2026

2. HUD, 2007-2025 Point-in-Time Counts by CoC (AHAR Part 1 data) Total, sheltered and unsheltered counts and count type. contentDigest is the SHA-256 of the workbook downloaded from the archived copy.

   Retrieved October 10, 2026. U.S. government work (public domain). Public domain; not rehosted here.

   Archived copy captured May 30, 2026

3. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-year estimates, table B01003 (population) Resident population used for beds per 10,000 residents (via dataset homelessness-rate-vs-rent).

   Retrieved October 10, 2026. U.S. government work (public domain). Public domain.

4. KCRHA, 2026 Point-in-Time Count FAQs (initial release), June 23, 2026 King County 2026 count (18,365 total; 6,536 sheltered; 11,829 unsheltered), table on p.3. HUD had not yet published 2026 data.

   Retrieved October 10, 2026. Public agency document. Linked, not rehosted.

   Archived copy captured October 10, 2026

5. KCRHA, 2024 Point-in-Time Count FAQ v2 Documents the respondent-driven sampling method used since 2022.

   Retrieved October 10, 2026. Public agency document. Linked, not rehosted.

   Archived copy captured October 10, 2026

Limitations

• HUD's Housing Inventory Count lists beds on the count night, not whether they were staffed or occupied.
• Permanent beds house people who are no longer counted as homeless.
• Rapid re-housing beds swing with grant funding, and RRH and other permanent housing were not reported in 2012-2013.