While state numbers dip, Fresno and Madera see homeless count climb, report says
The number of people who live on the street or in a shelter in Fresno County grew since the last official tally even as the statewide count has seen numbers tick down, according to a report released Monday.
The Fresno County point-in-time count from 2025 showed an increase of 9.2% from 2023 in the number of people who were reportedly unhoused up to 4,905 in Fresno and Madera counties, which collaborate on their Continuum of Care.
That includes 3,845 people living sheltered or unsheltered in metro Fresno, and 433 in the rural parts of the county, the report says. Volunteers counted 463 people in the Madera metro and 154 in rural Madera.
The numbers in Fresno and Madera differed from the state trend. There were 181,934 homeless people in California last year, which was a 2.8% decrease from 2024, according to the new federal report.
The overwhelming majority (91%) in Fresno and Madera were counted as adult-only households while 126 households (9%) included at least one adult and one child, the report said. One unaccompanied minor was tallied at a shelter.
Of the folks being tallied, 29% reported a substance use disorder and 31% reported having a serious mental illness, the report said.
The chronically homeless, which includes people who were homeless for at least a year and had a disabling condition, made up 30% of those counted, or 1,494. There were 281 under 18 and 263 who were 64 or older.
Seventy-four people reported having HIV or AIDS, 188 were veterans and 365 were domestic violence survivors, the count says.
The report said the two counties in the continuum had 4,087 year-round beds available for homeless and formerly homeless people as of January 2025, which was 7.5% more beds than the previous year. Of those beds in 2025, 84% were being used on the night of the tally, the report said.
Counties plan and organize their individual point-in-time counts, which are not meant to be a true count of the homeless but rather a measuring stick from year to year. The Continuum of Care this year changed how it conducts the counts, which may make comparing its numbers to the historical data difficult, county leaders have said.
In an update at 5 p.m. Monday, the county released its “unvalidated” results from the 2026 count that took place in January. The county also has scheduled a news conference for noon Tuesday “to discuss the 2025 and 2026 Point In time (PIT) results.”
The local continuum chairperson Laura Moreno on Monday said the new approach carried a heavier emphasis on surveying individuals. The idea is to provide “informed decisions about resource allocation, program development, housing interventions and long-term system planning,” Moreno said.
“The 2026 methodology represents an important evolution in how our region understands and responds to homelessness,” she said.
The previous tallies were primarily based on spotting the unhoused while the new method requires volunteers to contact more of the people they are counting and fill out surveys.
Fresno County’s release of the 2025 numbers was delayed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a news release from the county. The numbers were provided to HUD on May, 19, 2025, but HUD did not release a report until May 26 of this year. Fresno’s numbers were released after that.
This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 4:07 PM.
