Fewer People Are Sleeping on San Francisco Streets. But Family Homelessness Is Up

The number of people sleeping outside on San Francisco’s sidewalks is plummeting, but families continue to struggle to find affordable, stable housing amid rising rents and a skyrocketing cost of living.

That’s according to preliminary data from this year’s Point in Time (PIT) Count, a federal survey of the city’s homeless residents conducted in January.

It found that there were 1,000 fewer unsheltered people compared to the 2024 survey, marking a 22% decrease and the lowest recorded level since 2011.

“More people are coming inside to get shelter and treatment, and we are moving in the right direction,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Lurie campaigned on addressing street homelessness and outdoor drug use in the lead-up to his 2024 election as mayor.

The city has made a number of changes to its approach to both issues since he stepped into office in January 2025, including opening a crisis stabilization center at 822 Geary St. and, most recently, the RESET Center, a controversial sobering center and jail alternative where police bring people using drugs outside.

“When more than 800 people died of overdose in 2023, how could we expect San Franciscans or anyone else, for that matter, to feel like we were at our best as a city,” Lurie said at the press conference outside of Hope House, a recovery-focused transitional housing site. “I thought we had lost our way.”

Overall, the city saw a 4% decline in all homelessness in the latest count, dropping from 8,323 to 7,973 people since 2024, according to the PIT data.

The tally, which takes place every two years, sends surveyors out to scan the city block by block in a single day to count the number of people who are homeless both outside, including in cars and tents, and in shelters.

It is widely considered an imperfect measure, but a valuable tool in measuring broad changes in the city’s homeless population.

Despite the encouraging overall decrease, this year’s PIT Count found a 15% increase since 2024 in families experiencing homelessness. Many live in their vehicles.

The finding comes as rent prices and evictions in San Francisco have increased. Kunal Modi, the mayor’s homelessness chief, pointed to the city’s rising cost of living as a key reason families are struggling to stay housed.

“It’s everything from the availability of affordable housing to the cost of everyday living, whether it’s gas or groceries or rising rents,” Modi said. “The homeless response system sits alongside other work around family zoning or efforts to keep people enrolled in their benefits… and we’re going to think about all of these elements working together to keep families housed.”

Lurie’s administration has focused on clearing RVs as part of its overall approach to homelessness.

In October 2025, permits were issued to large vehicles and RVs to avoid towing and citations as the city worked to move families and individuals living in campers into housing.

A total of 132 households have moved from their vehicles to housing, and the city has cited nearly 800 large vehicles and towed 240 since the start of the program, according to city data.

Lurie, who, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle poll, has a whopping 74% approval rating among the more than 1,000 registered voters surveyed, said the bump in the number of families experiencing homelessness has been tied to the RV program.

“Most of those families [in the survey] were in shelter, but among those who weren’t, many were living in RVs,” he said. “I’m optimistic that our work around RVs has shown progress, and we are on track to have every family with a permitted vehicle in shelter or housing by the end of this year.”

The latest PIT Count recorded a roughly 85% decline in tents and other shelter structures outside, compared to the nearly 650 people identified in tents in 2024.

The findings come as the city has ramped up efforts to clear sidewalk encampments and move or arrest people on sidewalks who are using drugs.

Lurie campaigned on a promise to build 1,500 shelter beds within his first six months in office. But the mayor later pivoted, saying instead that the city needs the “right kind of beds,” such as treatment beds and transitional housing.

The city has closed some non-congregate shelter options under Lurie’s administration, but overall has added a net total of 408 shelter beds.

Today, 57% of San Francisco’s homeless population is sheltered, and there are not enough beds for everyone who wants a spot. There were 500 people on the city’s waitlist for shelter as of Tuesday.

The full survey results from January’s PIT Count will be released this summer.