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Seattle’s latest quarterly count of homeless encampments reveals a significant drop in homeless tents in the city since the end of 2023.
Seattle’s Unified Care Team counted 193 documented tents throughout the city in September. The latest count represents a 63% decrease from 523 tents counted at the end of 2023.
This is now the fourth consecutive quarter where the citywide tent count has decreased.
The Unified Care Team also counts the number of RVs at homeless encampment sites. The most recent count found 115 RVs in September, 49.3% down from the 227 counted at the end of last year.
The city’s count of homeless people has consistently dropped since the Unified Care Team launched in 2022.
Callie Craighead, press secretary for Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, notes that the downward trend stayed consistent even during the warmer months, when homeless people tend to choose to live outside.
“The quarter three updates to the Homelessness Action Plan show that the Unified Care Team is making progress to bring people indoors and keep public spaces clean, open, and accessible to all,” Craighead emailed The Center Square.
The latest count contradicts data showing a worsening homeless crisis hitting the King County region. According to the latest federally required unsheltered and sheltered point-in-time count conducted in January, there were 16,385 people experiencing homelessness in King County. That is a 22.6% increase from the previous count in 2022.
The Seattle Unified Care Team is a coordinating hub for city departments and partner agencies like the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to ensure public spaces, sidewalks and streets remain safe and accessible to all.
The team is based out of Harrell’s office, with nine staff responsible for citywide strategy, operations coordination, and administration.
The team works on removing homeless encampments and RV sites, enforces a 72-hour parking policy, cleans public spaces, and provides referrals to shelter for homeless residents.
There are five neighborhood teams within the Unified Care Team that conduct regular inspections at active encampment sites.
During a site inspection, field teams document site attributes such as environmental and mobility impacts, proximity to vulnerable populations or school walk zones, and other public impact factors that may influence site prioritization.
A verified count of tents, and lived-in vehicles is also completed during this time.
In the third quarter of this year, the Unified Care Team saw 586 referrals to shelter accepted by homeless residents. That is a 43% increase from 409 in the second quarter of 2024 and the highest number of accepted referrals this year.
Not all statistics in the latest One Seattle Homelessness Action Plan count were positive. Shots fired in connection to homelessness increased from eight in the second quarter to 15 in the third, despite decreases in tents
Encampment fires also increased from 177 in the second quarter to 202 in the third. Both of these statistics represent decreases from the third quarter of 2023.