Oakland's homeless population ticks up despite general drop for Alameda County
Alameda County is seeing an overall drop in its homeless population, but one East Bay city is lagging behind on the trend.
County officials recently released a snapshot of its homelessness picture. Countywide, homelessness dropped by 3% with unsheltered homelessness decreasing 11% since 2022.
The numbers also say there was a 19% increase in the number of people accessing shelter.
However, in Alameda County's largest city of Oakland, the number of homeless people went up by 9% over the last two years.
Still, officials noted that is less than the trend from 2015 to 2022 when Oakland averaged increases of 32% between counts.
County leaders said they were encouraged by the progress, but acknowledged that there was much more work to be done.