San Bernardino Deploys 200+ for Point-in-Time Count After 8% Homelessness Increase in 2025

More than 200 volunteers gathered at the NOS Center before dawn Thursday and deployed across San Bernardino for the city’s annual Point-in-Time Count, a one-day survey used to help determine federal funding for homelessness programs and guide local decisions on services and shelter.

The count began at 6 a.m. and was expected to conclude at 10 a.m., with support from the San Bernardino Police Department and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department as teams fanned out across the city.

Nearly the entire San Bernardino City Council attended the early-morning kickoff, including Mayor Helen Tran and San Bernardino County Supervisor Joe Baca Jr., as organizers briefed volunteers on safety, survey procedures and the distribution of hygiene kits intended to provide immediate aid to unhoused people.

Baca thanked volunteers and said the count is meant to do more than generate a number — it’s intended to guide near-term action and connect some people with help the same day.

“The most important thing about today is to say thank you,” Baca told the crowd. “Because really this is about the partnership and collaboration, collaboration with the city of San Bernardino, the National Orange Show, the County of San Bernardino, and all our county departments and city departments that are here.”

He said the information gathered can help agencies identify people in need and plan services, then pointed to major county investments leaders have highlighted as part of the region’s response — including the $75 million Pacific Village Phase 2 expansion and All Star Lodge, a former hotel converted into housing for older adults.

Tran urged volunteers to approach the work with urgency and care, emphasizing the importance of listening to the people they encounter. “Listen to what’s going on in their lives so we could understand more and how we could address the concern that’s really out there in our neighborhoods, in our streets, in our city, in our county,” she said.

Police reinforced the safety message with practical guidance, warning volunteers not to conduct surveys alone even if it seems faster.

“For efficiency’s sake, you may think it’s a good idea just to go get the count by yourself,” an officer told the group. “Please, please, please do not do that. Always have a partner with you.”

Officers told volunteers to use the phone numbers provided for law enforcement contacts if they needed help in the field, and to be ready to describe their location by cross streets or landmarks because police would not have the capability to track volunteers’ phones by GPS.

The early-morning deployment comes as city officials have publicly argued that San Bernardino’s homelessness challenge is both large and highly visible — and that the count itself, while required and useful, may understate what residents see day to day.

At a Jan. 15 special San Bernardino City Council meeting focused on an update to the city’s homeless navigation center, SB Hope Center, Deputy Director of Housing & Homelessness Cassandra Searcy told council members San Bernardino continues to have the highest concentration of homelessness in the county.

“Not to sound redundant, but our city does continue to have the highest concentration of homeless people in the county,” Searcy said. “We have nearly 40% of the county’s homeless that reside in our streets.”

Searcy cited the 2025 point-in-time count showing 1,535 unhoused people in San Bernardino, up from 1,417 in 2024 — an 8% increase — but warned the tally does not match what staff and residents observe daily.

“You can drive around the street and see that that number is not accurate,” she said. “Experts will tell you you should probably take your point-in-time count number and double, if not triple it if you want a more accurate reflection.”

Baca, speaking Thursday, said homelessness is among the issues residents most frequently raise with county offices. “We hear it every day. We get phone calls, you know, people talk about it,” he said.

He pointed to Pacific Village Phase 2, describing it as a $75 million project intended to expand treatment and recuperative care capacity. The county’s Pacific Village Campus Expansion, which broke ground in June 2025, is planned to include 58 units of permanent supportive housing, a 32-bed substance use treatment facility and 32 recuperative care units.

“This project is about compassionate care,” Board of Supervisors Chair Dawn Rowe said at the June 2025 groundbreaking. “We’re creating an environment where people are treated with dignity and supported on their journey to recovery.”

“The groundbreaking of the next phase of Pacific Village marks a critical step toward a stronger, healthier and safer Inland Empire,” Aguilar said. “By expanding access to behavioral health and addiction care, we will improve the health and well-being of our community.”

Baca framed the project as a pathway to stability rather than a temporary fix. “This campus will transform the lives of people who have gone through rough times by giving them a safe place to recover, rebuild, and regain their dignity,” he said. “It’s about providing opportunity, not just shelter.”

Construction on the Pacific Village expansion is underway, and county leaders have said it is scheduled for completion in winter 2026.

Baca also highlighted All Star Lodge as an example of senior-focused housing. “This is really about providing 76 rooms, which will be permanent supportive housing for seniors,” he said, adding that seniors have been among the larger groups identified in past counts.

“Seniors and formerly incarcerated people are a big part of our population,” Baca said. He also pointed to a 30-bed project in Muscoy aimed at serving what he described as the “forensic population” — people leaving jail who he said “cannot help themselves” — and said it is expected to open in April. County records describe the effort as the Kern Street Project, expanding an existing 10-bed social rehabilitation home into a 30-bed adult residential program.

County records say the project is backed by a 20-year agreement to increase capacity. Funding includes $2.5 million in Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Round 3 grant proceeds awarded to the county, $1.3 million in Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program funding received from the Inland Empire Health Plan, and $360,180 from Molina Healthcare.

The Kern Street Project is intended to serve individuals with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorders who may also be justice-involved, with services such as case management, care coordination and transportation to medical and psychiatric appointments. A California Policy Lab publication has also reported that unsheltered people surveyed described far more frequent law enforcement contacts than those in shelters, reflecting how homelessness and the justice system can overlap.

Baca closed by thanking volunteers and emphasizing that the count — and the work that follows it — depends on coordination across agencies and sustained involvement from the community.

As teams departed the NOS Center, organizers reiterated two goals for the morning: document what volunteers see across the city to inform funding and resource decisions, and offer basic assistance where possible through the hygiene kits distributed at the start.