| NeighborImpact congratulates Central Oregon’s housing and homelessness providers on a measurable regional reduction in homelessness following the release of the 2026 Point-in-Time Count, which reported a 19.1 percent decrease from the previous year.
A total of 1,706 people were counted as experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2026, compared with 2,108 people counted in 2025.
The reduction, which represents 402 fewer people without stable housing, reflects the work of local providers serving people at every stage of housing instability, from eviction prevention and shelter to outreach, rehousing and long-term stabilization.
In calendar year 2025, NeighborImpact helped 141 people exit homelessness directly.
Through its Stepping Stone Shelter and ongoing rental support, NeighborImpact served 496 people experiencing homelessness or facing long-term housing instability. Those services support people who would otherwise be living in shelters, motels, vehicles, outdoors or doubled up in unstable arrangements, helping them move toward safer and more stable housing.
Shelter, outreach and rehousing services are essential once someone has lost housing. But the most effective and affordable intervention happens earlier: helping households remain stable before a missed payment, job disruption or unexpected bill becomes homelessness. In calendar year 2025, NeighborImpact helped prevent eviction and housing loss for 1,320 people, keeping households stable and helping families move toward self-sufficiency without the deeper, longer-term support often required after homelessness has occurred.
“When communities invest upstream—before a missed rent payment becomes an eviction, before a utility shutoff becomes displacement, before a family is forced into crisis—people stay housed,” said Scott Cooper, Executive Director of NeighborImpact. “As vital and life-saving as intervention strategies such as shelters are, the least expensive, most effective way to address homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Central Oregon’s progress this year is strong evidence that a coordinated and funded approach to prevention, shelter, outreach and stabilization wraparound services can effectively address this persistent challenge. The wrong lesson would be to celebrate these one-year results and then pull back from the very strategies that helped produce them.”
In addition to providing direct services, NeighborImpact administered pass-through funding to local shelter, outreach and homeless-service providers across the region. In calendar year 2025, NeighborImpact reimbursed $401,502.26 to 14 service providers, supporting partners that provide shelter, street outreach and other critical interventions.
Providers supported through NeighborImpact-administered funding from both state and federal government included: |
