Homelessness in Wake County is up 27 percent over last year, according to preliminary data from the 2025 point-in-time (PIT) count. Much of that increase comes from a rise in unsheltered homelessness.
In January, more than 100 volunteers fanned out across the county’s shelters and encampments to count and interview unhoused people as part of an annual effort to produce data for the Wake Continuum of Care and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The volunteers counted 1,258 people, up from 992 in 2024. Of those, 287 were living unsheltered, more than twice as many as last year, and 320, or about a quarter, were chronically homeless…