Seattle/King County homeless count, sheltered vs. unsheltered, 2012-2026

What this dataset measures

Shows what shelter and housing capacity King County added while its homeless count grew, using HUD's own inventory, and puts King County's capacity in context with the same 67 large CoCs used in homelessness-rate-vs-rent.

Geography

King County, WA, Seattle, WA, United States

Unit of observation

CoC by count year

Update cadence

Annually, after HUD releases PIT and HIC data by CoC

Curator

FactHub

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• build_hic.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 4.9 KB (4,976 bytes)

  Node.js script that builds hic-panel from the HUD HIC workbook sheets (exported to CSV) and the PIT/ACS panel.

• analyze_hic.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 6.5 KB (6,702 bytes)

  Node.js script for the cross-CoC bed comparisons in the method notes.

• csvlib.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 1.1 KB (1,139 bytes)

  CSV helper used by the HIC scripts.

• build_count_beds.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 24.9 KB (25,500 bytes)

  Node.js script that builds king-count-beds and the saved analyses in this dataset.

• findings-hic.md Documentation · text/markdown · 16.2 KB (16,567 bytes)

  Method notes, King County and cross-CoC results, and caveats for the bed-capacity data.

Saved analyses

Derived from

This dataset uses data from these FactHub dataset versions.

• Homelessness rate vs. rent in 67 large U.S. Continuums of Care, 2015-2025 Version 1

  Population and CoC geography for beds per 10,000 residents.

Sources

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 and reproducibility

Reproducible from public sources: Export the HUD HIC workbook sheets to CSV, run hic-build-script against them and the panel from dataset homelessness-rate-vs-rent, then run count-beds-script (Node.js).

• HIC beds are inventory on the count night, not occupancy.
• King County's count method changed in 2015, 2017, 2022 and 2026; HUD carried unsheltered counts forward in 2014, 2023 and 2025.
• Permanent housing beds serve people who are no longer counted as homeless.
• Rapid re-housing beds depend on grant funding and swing year to year.
• Descriptive data; no causal claims.