A year after a canvass of the Inland Empire showed a slight increase in the number of residents living without permanent shelter, some cities are preparing to again measure homelessness in the region.
Information collected in the Point in Time count, conducted each January, is used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to distribute funding for programs to combat homelessness and to measure the effectiveness of efforts to reduce homelessness nationwide.
In the Inland Empire, the 2025 count showed an overall increase in homelessness regionally. Though homelessness decreased for the first time in eight years in San Bernardino County, that was offset by an uptick in homelessness in Riverside County.
This week, volunteers will fan out across the state for the annual count, which comes as Gov. Gavin Newsom continues pushing California cities and counties to address homeless encampments.
A June 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed local governments to arrest people sleeping in public, even when there are no shelter spaces available for them to go to instead.
After the decision, Newsom declared it was time for local governments to clear homeless encampments. In August 2025, he announced a task force to help encampment inhabitants in the state’s 10 largest cities.
“And we’re seeing results,” Newsom said at his final State of the State address on Jan. 8. “Early data shows — and this is the important number — unsheltered homeless, that the number of unsheltered homeless in California dropped almost double digits, 9% last year.”
During the same period, overall homelessness in the U.S. went up 18.1.%, according to Newsom.
The governor vowed to direct $1 billion of Proposition 1 mental health funds to county governments to pay for mental health services for homeless residents.
“So I say this with love and respect to the counties: No more excuses. It’s time to bring people off the streets and out of encampments and into housing and treatment,” Newsom said. “No more excuses.”
Last year in the Inland Empire, the biggest drops in local homeless residents occurred in Twentynine Palms, where homelessness dropped 80%; Palm Desert, where homelessness dropped 64%; and Yucca Valley, where homelessness dropped 56%.
Twentynine Palms City Manager Stone James credits the Molding Hearts Foundation for much of the drop there. The Corona nonprofit, which began providing services in Twentynine Palms in November 2024, focuses on addressing the root causes of homelessness, James said.
“So often, the treatment is ‘let me give you a burrito, a shower and a fresh pillow, and then you can go back to sleeping in the dirt,’” James said.
In contrast, Molding Hearts provides program participants with a more significant chance to get back on their feet.
“For under $1,000 a month, (the nonprofit) is able to provide them a room, three meals a day plus snacks,” James said. In February 2025, the Twentynine Palms City Council voted to pay Molding Hearts $25,500 for outreach services to area homeless.
Homes run by the nonprofit are drug-free environments where residents can get help creating a resume and find work. Residents are required to put 80% of their income into savings, so after their year in a Molding Hearts’ home, residents have a nest egg to help them start over.
But James acknowledges the program doesn’t work for everyone.
“There are going to be some people who say ‘no, I want to maintain my drug habit,’” he said. “That’s a whole separate conversation.”
James also credited the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s homeless outreach programs for their daily work engaging with homeless residents in Twentynine Palms.
“They’re out constantly, constantly, saying ‘hey, are you ready to make a change?’” James said.
In 2024, there were 474 homeless people for every 100,000 California residents and 226 homeless residents for every 100,000 people in the United States. Statewide and national data for 2025 was not available from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in time for publication.
In 2025, most Inland Empire communities had much lower ratios than both the state and nation:
- There were 248 homeless people per 100,000 Los Angeles County residents.
- There were 188 homeless per every per 100,000 Riverside County residents.
- There were 198 homeless per every 100,000 San Bernardino County residents.
Some individual cities had even lower reported rates of homelessness:
- Claremont had 22 homeless people per 100,000 residents.
- La Verne was close behind, with 23 homeless people per 100,000 residents.
- Palm Desert had 26 homeless people per 100,000 residents.
- Yucaipa had 29 homeless people per 100,000 residents.
Meanwhile, some of the largest cities in the Inland Empire had higher rates of homelessness:
- Pomona had 329 homeless people per 100,000 residents
- Riverside had 335 homeless people per 100,000 residents
- San Bernardino had 682 homeless people per 100,000 residents
Volunteering for the 2026 count
Volunteers are gearing up for the homeless count this week.
Los Angeles County will conduct its count of a three-day period beginning Tuesday, Jan. 20. A one-day count in San Bernardino County is set for Thursday, Jan. 22. Riverside County conducts its count every other year, so it’s next count is set for 2027.
San Bernardino County has stopped accepting registrations for new volunteers, according to county spokesperson Ashley Jones, after 700 people signed up to participate in this year’s count.
And this year’s count will have more resources available to support those 700 volunteers, including a floating team of specialists that volunteers can call in to provide services to homeless residents. The county is also providing more resources to its volunteers, including more training on how to use the mobile app used during the count.
Los Angeles County residents are still being recruited to participate in this year’s Point in Time Count. Visit count.lahsa.org to sign up.
