New city data shows lower levels of homelessness, according to a June 2 report from Denton's Community Services Director Jesse Kent.
Wendy McGee, the executive director of the homeless advocacy nonprofit Our Daily Bread, also noted the number of people seeking services at the Denton Community Shelter has seen a modest decrease, though the shelter has experienced a 33% increase in people moving out of the shelter and into permanent housing following changes made in April to the shelter policy.
Diving deeper
The city tracks homelessness through multiple indicators, Kent said in the report. One of the indicators is the point-in-time count. The count is a federally mandated census of individuals experiencing homelessness conducted every year on a single night in January. Denton’s 2026 point-in-time count showed 357 people experiencing homelessness, down from 607 in 2025.
“This number was a surprising result for many members of the system and the community, as the impacts of homelessness and needs present don’t feel like they’ve declined that much,” Kent said. “Many agencies still struggle with the amount of need they have to support.”
The nonprofit Denton County homelessness services agency The Path Home conducts the point-in-time count every year in partnership with the city of Denton and staff from other local agencies, Kent said.
Zooming out
The housing priority list, a count of people engaging with homeless services maintained by the United Way of Denton County, showed similar data to the city’s point-in-time count. The number of people on the housing priority list dropped from 580 in January 2025, down to 347 in January 2026.
Kent said the priority list is a more accurate representation of the number of unhoused people because it’s updated monthly and tracks the number of people engaging with services, as opposed to the point-in-time count, which is a single snapshot.
Some background
In April 2025, city leaders implemented new policy at the Denton Community Shelter, which mandated weekly case management, volunteer hours and a housing plan for the shelter clients. The changes also set the ratio of case managers to clients at 20:1, which caused a reduction in the shelter’s overnight capacity, from 192 in 2025, to 120 in 2026.
Since making the changes, the number of shelter residents dropped from 108 to 82, and the average length of stay at the shelter dropped from 133 to 107 nights, per Kent’s report.
“These indicators point to an overall decline in homelessness in Denton, though there is still much work to do to adequately address homelessness,” Kent said.
What they’re saying
Gary Henderson, the president and CEO of the United Way of Denton County, said cost of living and low wages in Denton are all contributors to homelessness in the city.
“For some folks, the cost of housing, the cost of transportation [and] the job they can secure here, doesn’t align with what it costs to be a member of our community,” Henderson said.
McGee said that while there has been a drop in homelessness, the data doesn’t capture the full picture.
“This year we’ve had 860 people come in,” McGee said. “That’s a significant number—more than what was in the count, so there are still folks out there who are experiencing homelessness, although our number is slightly reduced from where it was year over year.”
Looking ahead
Kent said the city will go through an audit in April 2027 to evaluate the city’s progress on its homeless initiatives.
