Las Vegas-based grant writer Patrick Frase has volunteered to help Clark County conduct its last three Point-In-Time (PIT) counts—a tally of the number of people experiencing homelessness in a community on a single night that’s mandated every two years by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He’s set to participate in the next one on January 29.
The count, which last occurred here in 2024, is a key determinant in how much federal funding community organizations will get, as well as a measurement of the needs of homeless individuals in any given area. Frase—who also took part in five PIT counts in Bakersfield before moving to the Las Vegas Valley—didn’t even need to see the data from the last count to know that Clark County’s homeless population is rapidly rising.
“The thing that’s changed the most is seeing more and more homeless people out there,” he says, reflecting on 2024 results that saw Clark County’s homeless population hit a new 10-year high of 7,906, or a 20% increase from 2023. “A sadder thing that I saw was a lot of women and children, or men with their dogs on the streets. It’s very humbling, because I know it could just as easily be me.”
The Southern Nevada Continuum of Care (CoC)—which coordinates the count and organizations that provide homeless services in the Valley—did not conduct a count in 2025, citing a need for more time to recruit and train volunteers. Later this month, Frase will join roughly 200 volunteers when the January 29 count kicks off at 4 a.m. They’ll be broken up into teams of four or five and tasked with interviewing as many homeless people as possible in a specific area.
They’ll record basic demographic data and note how many are living in shelters or transitional housing, versus out on the streets. In 2024, 47% of the 7,906 individuals counted were sheltered in some capacity, while 53% were not. Youth homelessness increased an alarming 79%, and the largest share of respondents were between the ages of 35 and 44.
WHAT’S CHANGED?
It remains to be seen if these trends persist through 2026, but Clark County Social Services director Jamie Sorenson says he’s interested in seeing if local camping ban ordinances from Clark County and the City of North Las Vegas impact the data.
Effective last February, the Clark County ban made it a misdemeanor for people to camp, lay down, sleep or store personal property in public spaces. The City of North Las Vegas also implemented a similar policy last year, while Las Vegas and Henderson passed their own versions in 2019 and 2023, respectively.
Critics say the laws effectively criminalize homelessness, and the Ninth Circuit agreed with them via a 2019 ruling in Martin v. City of Boise, where the court ruled that cities couldn’t enforce such ordinances. However, the Supreme Court reversed that in 2024, declaring that the Eighth Amendment’s "cruel and unusual punishment" clause does not prohibit enforcement of such laws.
Sorenson is unsure if the upcoming PIT count will “draw any correlation” to the bans, but adds that other factors, like a dire shortage of affordable housing, rising rent prices and food insecurity, may also play a role in what they find.
The count is a federal prerequisite to unlock about $25 million for homeless relief efforts throughout Southern Nevada. Sorenson says the county itself stands to gain $6.7 million, while the remaining $18.4 million would be disbursed “directly to community agencies.”
The nature of this funding also changed in November, when President Trump’s HUD shifted its focus away from prioritizing providing unsheltered residents with stable, long-term housing options in favor of transitional programs tied to employment and substance abuse treatment. Experts say more than 170,000 homeless people are at risk of losing their housing. More than 2,700 Nevadans living with disabilities live in CoC-funded supportive housing.
It’s a shift that Frase, as a grant writer, cannot endorse.
“When you see a woman and her children on the streets, she just may have nowhere else to go and rely on federal money to get by,” Frase says. “But with what’s going on with the administration, that could be reduced or even truncated at any time because of our president’s belief that they’re all mentally ill. It’s scary, but I can only do my part with the PIT and hope the federal funding comes back.”
BUILDING THE SAFETY NET
Once homeless and living in the underground tunnels near the Strip from 2013 until he entered long-term addiction treatment in 2018, Robert Banghart has since become a key local advocate for the homeless as vice president of community integration for the nonprofit Shine A Light Foundation.
Rendering of Campus for Hope
Shine A Light hasn’t accepted any direct federal funding to this point, though Banghart says they know they “have to at some point and have explored it.” They’re primarily reliant on a combination of private donations—from which 92 cents of every dollar goes directly to their 304 active clients—and a handful of local grants and contracts with entities like the Eighth Judicial District’s specialty court programs.
This funding bolsters their flagship IPATH program—or Instant Placement with Access to Treatment and Housing—which helps clients navigate addiction treatment and find temporary housing solutions. The nonprofit’s headquarters also features full-time counseling and legal services, access to supplies ranging from clothing and toiletries to Narcan and fentanyl test strips and additional wraparound services like in-house Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Banghart’s team meticulously tracks their progress and follows up for 18 months or longer to see what works and what doesn’t, adjusting individual plans as needed. And while that model works well, they couldn’t possibly address the needs of the Valley’s entire homeless community on their own.
The PIT count is one way to shed light on unmet needs and areas for improvement, but Banghart has reason to doubt its accuracy. He estimates that Southern Nevada’s true homeless population is more than double what the last PIT count found—or more than 15,000 people—with 1,200 to 1,500 living underground on any given night.
“The truth is, there is no real safety net for the homeless here,” he says. “There are a lot of silos and separate pieces—with some groups working together over here, and others over there—but that’s not a net. The net is when we all come together and fully collaborate.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Banghart sees some relief on the horizon in Campus for Hope, a new 22-acre, 900-bed comprehensive homeless services campus currently under construction at Charleston and Jones boulevards. Officials expect work to be completed by 2028.
CEO Kim Jefferies was tapped to lead the effort after previously holding the same role at San Antonio’s Haven for Hope campus. Since it opened in 2010, she says 92% of clients who found housing through the program were still housed a year later, while 87% were after ten years.
Funding for the Campus for Hope is outlined in a bill that passed in the 2023 Legislature and allocated $100 million to a matching fund for development, to be matched by Las Vegas resorts. The legislation provides that the state will provide matching funds of $15 million per year if participating local governments match that $15 million per year, for a total of $30 million for annual operations.
Jefferies and Banghart both believe in the model of coalescing homeless resources together in a single area.
“The goal is to get at the underlying cause of their homelessness and give them the time and space to work on it so that they don’t have to return,” Jefferies says. “Whether it’s help with substance use, behavioral health, housing, going back to school or finding apprenticeships and careers, those are all things they’ll have available to them.”
While San Antonio and Las Vegas have similar metro populations, Jefferies also points out some stark differences. For one, she says the affordable housing crisis goes far “deeper” in the Valley, while Las Vegas’ homeless population also skews younger and includes a higher percentage of unsheltered individuals and families. On top of that, she says the nonprofit system here is “more fragmented” and “probably about a decade behind” San Antonio.
“In San Antonio, the average length of stay on campus was four months, but we expect that to be closer to nine months here for those reasons,” Jefferies says. “We have to continue to build out that housing continuum before we open to make sure we have places to place people so they don’t languish on campus.”
Jefferies agrees that the PIT process “is never a perfect count,” but notes that it serves as an important starting point for developing the campus and recruiting partners.
“When you throw something this large in the middle of the system, it forces you to see gaps more easily and coordinate in new ways,” she says. “Campus for Hope is going to bring a lot of beds and add capacity that doesn’t exist at this scale, but there’s also a lot of great work already happening here. We’re excited to become a part of it.”
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