UMATILLA, MORROW COUNTIES — Around 500 people were recorded as experiencing homelessness in Umatilla and Morrow counties during the annual one-night Point-in-Time count.

Claudia Limon, program director for the Community Action Program of East Central Oregon, said the total rough estimate of 500 is unofficial. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has yet to verify the figure, and the final number likely is going to be “much lower,” closer to 300, she said.

“ I’m still happy with that number,” she said. “I still think it’s going to represent a good number of the unsheltered homeless population in our area.”

HUD’s standard for homelessness is stricter than what CAPECO — the organization responsible for conducting the count — requires for offering help to people. Therefore, several of the numbers included in the rough estimate will not count toward HUD’s final numbers. Still, the information is useful for CAPECO’s regional efforts to offer housing assistance and generally support residents around the two counties.

The Point-in-Time count is a national effort to track the number of people in an area who are unsheltered at any given time. It takes place one night in January, and is widely believed to undercount the homeless population. Still, the numbers in a county or region help determine funding and support from the state and federal governments for particular programs.

For the 2025 count, which took place Jan. 29, CAPECO recorded 215 people via the Counting Us app — used at various locations in the community — as well as 213 youth in schools, 38 people at the Promise Inn in Pendleton and 34 people at Stepping Stones Alliance in Hermiston.

CAPECO’s rough initial estimate for 2025 — 500 total — is the sum from counts in Morrow, Umatilla, Gilliam and Wheeler counties, though Limon said the majority of that number is concentrated in Umatilla and Morrow counties. It encompasses the efforts of teams that went out into the community to meet people, groups who counted at local shelters and service provider locations, and anonymized data from all but three local schools about their students who are experiencing housing instability.

HUD might not use unofficial statistics, but Limon said they still are useful for providing insight. Getting an idea of who needs help, even if they aren’t fully unsheltered, can only be good.

“We want to show what the true need is in our communities because not everybody is unsheltered homeless, but they’re unstably housed or, with our youth, we have a lot of unaccompanied minors in our area,” Limon said.

Last year’s rough estimate was 300-350, she said. However, that doesn’t mean 150-200 more people are homeless this year versus last year. Limon instead attributes the jump from 2024 to 2025 to higher volunteer numbers and better partnerships with local organizations and schools. This year saw about 20% more people volunteering to count than last year.

“We got more buy-in from our partners,” she said. “ This is such a huge effort. I mean, we had people from all over the communities helping with this.”

Limon mentioned volunteers included city managers, board members of local nonprofits, Umatilla County Public Health employees and Umatilla County Commissioner Cindy Timmons, among others.

This year’s count also included a bigger participation from schools to provide more accurate numbers for the youth Point-in-Time numbers. While this year saw almost every school in the coverage area participate, last year’s youth count had less than half of them give numbers. Limon’s goal for the future is to get a response from every school in the area.

CAPECO wanted to get more accurate youth numbers this year because the organization is working with other groups to secure funding for rural youth experiencing housing insecurity or instability, like those whose parents kicked them out but who can stay with a friend’s family. These youth don’t have a guardian to take responsibility for them, she said.

“ We are working as a team to (get this data),” she said, “so that we can have stronger applications, show that the need in rural Oregon is there for youth and make sure that, when we do apply, we have those numbers, we have that data and we can show the true need in our service area.”