Point-in-Time Counts of Homelessness

Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada (HICC) supports community efforts across Canada to better understand the state of local homelessness, and contribute to a national picture of homelessness. Everyone Counts, the nationally-coordinated Point-in-Time (PiT) Counts, are an important piece of this national understanding. They include an annual enumeration of people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness, and a periodic survey that gathers information about causes and consequences of homelessness and the populations affected by it.

Full PiT Counts take place every third year and include two components:

Enumeration: An enumeration is an estimate of the number of people experiencing homelessness within a determined geographical area on a single night. It also identifies the location where they spent the night: in shelters, transitional housing, or unsheltered locations.
Survey on Homelessness: The Survey on Homelessness (“the survey”) includes a set of standardized questions that are administered directly to individuals experiencing homelessness. Respondents include those in shelters, transitional housing, health and correctional systems, unsheltered locations, and hidden homeless (e.g. people who are “couch surfing”). The survey collects information on the characteristics and experiences of people affected by homelessness to help community organisations and all orders of government better understand and serve individuals experiencing homelessness in Canada.

PiT enumerations update the community's enumeration in the years between the full PiT Counts.

Who can participate

Any Canadian community can take part in Everyone Counts. Reaching Home Designated communities conduct a PiT Count as part of the program.

The most recent full PiT Count took place in fall 2024; the next is planned for 2027. PiT enumerations will take place in 2025 and 2026.

Method

An enumeration is conducted every year and the survey is administered every third year in conjunction with the enumeration. HICC works with communities across Canada as well as with experts in data collection and analysis, homeless service provision, and subject matters included in the survey to develop a common approach for each PiT Count.

The PiT Count approach for conducting a full PiT Count, including enumeration and survey, is outlined in the Standards for participation.
The PiT Enumeration approach for conducting an enumeration only, is outlined in the Enumeration standards for participation.

These approaches balance methodological rigour, to ensure data quality and comparability, with community flexibility, so that communities can adapt the counts to their local context.

How communities can use the information collected in a PiT Count

PiT Counts support Coordinated Access (CA), a core component of the Reaching Home program, by validating and complementing a community's person-specific data, a dataset that includes everyone currently experiencing homelessness and that has provided consent. PiT Counts can help to improve data quality and inform community planning efforts. PiT Counts can also be leveraged to conduct outreach to individuals and families who may not normally access services in the community. These individuals can then be added to the community's person-specific data. A community can also compare PiT Count results with other community data sources to check for completeness. Comparing both the numbers and demographics between data sets can support this data quality check.

The enumeration can:

detect increases or decreases in the number of people experiencing homelessness, when compared to previous enumerations
identify shifts in the location where people experiencing homelessness are spending the night

The survey can:

identify populations that are over-represented among people experiencing homelessness
help to better understand the pathways into homelessness to strengthen prevention services in those areas
highlight areas of greatest need in order to effectively target resources to them

Supports to conduct a full PiT Count (enumeration and survey)

Standards for participation: This includes the essential elements for participation in the nationally-coordinated PiT count: Core Standards, Recommended Standards, Core Screening questions, and Core Survey Questions
Guide to Point-in-Time Counts in Canada: This Guide provides guidelines and direction for communities carrying out a PiT Count
Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS): A Homeless Management Information System developed by HICC, which includes a module that can be used to securely collect and report PiT count survey data

Supports to conduct a PiT Count enumeration

Enumeration standards for participation: This includes the Core and Recommended Standards for participation in the nationally-coordinated PiT Count enumeration
Guide to Point-in-Time Enumerations in Canada [forthcoming]: This Guide will provide guidelines and direction for communities carrying out a PiT enumeration

In addition, the Homelessness Learning Hub serves as a repository of resources and tools produced by the Government of Canada, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, and communities to support the planning and successful implementation of a both a full PiT Count and an enumeration.

Findings from previous PiT Counts

Contact us

For information on Point-in-time Counts, send an email to hpd.data-donnees.dpmi@infc.gc.ca.

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Date modified:: 2025-12-23

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