Annual count finds slight decline in homelessness in Vermont

Carly Berlin covers housing and infrastructure for Vermont Public, in partnership with VTDigger.

For the second year running, an annual tally found a modest decrease in the number of people experiencing homelessness in Vermont. 

“On its face, this is an encouraging finding. We certainly want to see fewer people experiencing homelessness in Vermont, and any movement in that direction is worth acknowledging,” said Kim Anetsberger, director of the Lamoille Community House and co-chair of the Balance of State Continuum of Care, at a press conference revealing the January count’s results on Tuesday. 

But the tally, designed to be a yearly snapshot rather than a comprehensive census of everyone experiencing homelessness throughout a given year, gives limited insight, she added.

“We think it’s important to exercise caution before interpreting this decrease as evidence that Vermont is making meaningful progress towards ending homelessness,” Anetsberger said.

The yearly point-in-time count is a federally mandated effort to tally each person experiencing homelessness nationwide on a single night each winter. The Vermont count registered 3,286 people in January of 2026, a nearly 3% decline from the 2025 tally, according to a report released Tuesday.

The drop mirrors a national trend: The 2026 count found a more than 6% decrease in homelessness across the country, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said last week. 

In the years following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vermont saw a rapid rise in homelessness. That happened as the state experienced skyrocketing housing prices and razor-thing rental vacancies. But that white-hot housing market has now cooled off somewhat, and the state has added more subsidized housing thanks to COVID-era federal aid.   

Travis Poulin, the community action network director for the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity and co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, said service providers have made some progress in moving unhoused people into homes.

“Our efforts at trying to help people secure stable housing are working – albeit, more slowly than we would like,” Poulin said.

Even as the Vermont count found fewer people experiencing homelessness overall in January, it registered an uptick in the number of people living without shelter – meaning they were sleeping in a vehicle or outdoors. 

The count tallied 284 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness last January, a 5% jump from the year prior, with Chittenden County seeing the largest increase. 

The number of people sleeping outside in the state has more than doubled since before the pandemic, according to previous point-in-time count data. Advocates have blamed that uptick on the ongoing scale-back of the state’s motel voucher program, which has historically provided an option for unhoused people when traditional community-based shelters are full.

This year’s count also found a rise in homelessness among children. The number of unhoused people under the age of 18 jumped by 5% as of the 2026 count. The 667 children identified in the tally represent nearly one in five of all people experiencing homelessness in Vermont.

“Families are increasingly struggling to find housing that is both affordable and large enough to accommodate their households. At the same time, the cost of living continues to rise, and many families simply don’t have the financial resources or cushion to withstand a job loss, unexpected expenses, rent increases, or other crises,” said Taylor Thibault, associate director of homelessness prevention initiatives at Champlain Housing Trust and co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. 

The point-in-time count is generally regarded as a low estimate of the number of people experiencing homelessness. Accurately counting people sleeping outdoors is notoriously difficult, particularly in Vermont’s rural setting, and cold weather might drive people into less visible places or to take emergency measures like pooling funds for a motel room, the report’s authors note. 

And because of HUD’s relatively narrow definition of homelessness, the count does not include people who are couch-surfing or doubling up with relatives. Other tallies of homelessness in the Green Mountain State point to a larger population struggling to maintain stable housing. 

The Vermont Agency of Education counted close to 1,700 students experiencing homelessness in Vermont public schools during the 2024-2025 school year, the latest data available. 

The state’s “Coordinated Entry” system, which homeless service providers use to streamline assistance for unhoused people, registered nearly 4,900 individuals with completed assessments as of October. 

Still, the consistent January count offers a helpful yearly benchmark to track trends over time and understand who is experiencing homelessness in Vermont. 

The 2026 tally found that more than a third of unhoused people in the state report living with a serious mental illness. About 18% of people counted in the survey said they experience substance use disorder. 

The report also shows a persistent racial disparity among people experiencing homelessness in Vermont. The 2026 count found a 9% increase in homelessness among people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color. 

Vermont is making gains in easing homelessness among certain populations, according to this year’s count. The tally found that homelessness among veterans declined by 17%, mirroring national trends in recent years. The number of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness also fell.

While the number of unhoused people in the Green Mountain State is comparatively small, the annual point-in-time count has found that Vermont’s rate of homelessness consistently rivals those of states like New York, Oregon and California.

The results come as state leaders are in the middle of overhauling Vermont’s homelessness response system, an effort that began in September and has included further reducing the scale of the state’s motel voucher program. That program provided shelter for the majority of unhoused Vermonters at the time of January’s tally.

“As Vermont continues to implement changes to its emergency housing system, we need to be thoughtful about what happens when shelter resources are reduced or changed without sufficient alternatives available,” said Chad Simmons, director of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont.

The report’s authors also called for the creation of more affordable housing options for people with extremely low incomes, a more robust effort to prevent homelessness through rental aid and eviction mediation, and an expansion of behavioral health and supportive services.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Annual count finds slight decline in homelessness in Vermont .