CHAMPAIGN – Homelessness in Champaign County has risen in recent years.
The latest count, conducted in early 2026, found 364 people in the area are homeless – up from 355 the prior year. The data was released in August by the Champaign County Continuum of Service Providers to the Homeless (CSPH) — a group of local organizations focused on ending homelessness.
The point-in-time count is a count of both sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness nationwide – an annual initiative overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Among individuals counted in 2026 in Champaign County, 52 were unsheltered, 175 were sheltered in emergency shelters and 137 were sheltered in transitional housing.
The trend concerns Danielle Chynoweth, chair of the CSPH and supervisor of Cunningham Township.
“It’s very dangerous to be homeless, and homeless residents experience violent crime at a much higher rate than the general population,” she said.
The challenge of measuring homelessness
To conduct the count, volunteers are assigned by CSPH. Some volunteers are paid service providers assigned by Cunningham Township, which collaborates with CSPH.
Chynoweth said this method of counting homeless individuals is often criticized because it does not account for people who are invisibly homeless, such as those seeking shelter in abandoned buildings and parking lots.
“People who are ‘street homeless’ typically don’t want to be seen or found,” she said.
CSPH divides Champaign County into eight geographic areas and sends out volunteers to request feedback from people in the community experiencing homelessness, said Katie Harmon, Continuum of Care coordinator for the Champaign Regional Planning Commission.
Survey questions inquire about people’s current living situation, how many times they have experienced homelessness, if they have experienced domestic violence and other questions aimed at understanding what circumstances led to their homelessness.
“We found a lot of people who were experiencing homelessness also had some sort of disability, whether that was a physical disability, an intellectual disability, a mental health-related disability,” Harmon said.
“A good portion also had some sort of disabling condition that was impacting their ability to work, and therefore don’t have steady income to find housing,”
Harmon said the survey also helps them understand what resources these individuals need and consider how the community can provide them.
Efforts to address the problem
In 2025, the U.S. saw a roughly 17% jump in overall homelessness and a 38% jump in family homelessness, she said.
The rise in homelessness within Champaign County traces back to 2020, according to Chynoweth.
She says homelessness is a housing affordability issue.
“It’s very important that there be safe and affordable housing for people of all abilities, and in particular, what we see locally is a rising number of first-time homeless residents — people [who] have not experienced homelessness before,” she said.
However, Chynoweth said one promising note in the data is the decrease in unsheltered homeless individuals. She believes this is due to CSPH’s efforts to increase shelter capacity.
The group’s strategic plan is still being finalized, Chynoweth said, but CSPH has already been able to open a secondary shelter with support from Cunningham Township. The shelter helped keep 216 men off the streets last winter.
The Strides shelter in Champaign, which has a low barrier to entry, has also been able to continue providing temporary shelter to individuals who may not meet eligibility criteria at other shelters due to substance use or criminal records.
While shelters play an important role in keeping people off the streets, Chynoweth says it’s important for communities to invest in resources to prevent homelessness and “make homelessness rare, brief, and one-time.”
If somebody does become homeless, she says the goal is to get them into permanent, stable housing quickly.
“We know that the longer that someone is homeless, the longer that they will stay homeless,” she said.