Jeff Huron, homelessness prevention manager for the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention, gave an annual update to the Social Services and Public Safety Committee on Oct. 14 outlining system capacity, recent data and planned actions.

Huron said the 2025 point-in-time count showed an increase of about 100 people, roughly 12 percent more than 2024, and recorded the largest number of people in emergency shelter in recent counts. "In 2025, our count showed an increase of 100 persons, or about 12 percent, over 2024," Huron said. He added that the number of persons in emergency shelter on the night of the count reached 810, higher than previous counts.

Huron described the office’s role as a funding and coordination agency — not a direct-service provider — and listed recent staffing additions: a continuum of care coordinator, an HMIS data analyst (added in fiscal 2024) and an encampment coordinator who began Sept. 22. He said LFUCG has invested more than $50 million to address homelessness between fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2025 and that local funding streams include the Innovative and Sustainable Solutions Fund (about $1.4 million annually) and the emergency-shelter component of the Extended Social Resource program (about $2 million annually). The office also administers HUD Continuum of Care grants that bring more than $2.5 million annually to Lexington.

On encampments, Huron said the city conducted 22 cleanups at 19 unique locations in fiscal 2025, with eight sites designated as emphasis areas; he said about half of encampment responses occur at a small number of recurring locations. Cleanup costs ranged from about $100 to $21,544, and a median cleanup cost was approximately $1,100, he said.

Huron told the committee the office will bring a work-session request to expand street outreach and add clinical supports; proposed changes included downtown-dedicated staff and two part-time weekend staff to extend outreach beyond Monday–Friday coverage. "Being able to expand the ability for our outreach team to directly engage individuals in the field, assess their needs, potentially diagnose or connect to care, really allows us to do better work with individuals where they are," he said.

Huron said the office is updating its five-year strategic plan and cited external challenges, including state legislation (House Bill 5, the Safer Kentucky Act) that criminalizes some forms of public sleeping or camping and proposed federal shifts to Continuum of Care funding that could reduce permanent supportive housing resources. He said the emergency-shelter feasibility study the administration submitted in June recommended roughly 500 additional beds over five years and emphasized low-barrier shelter models as part of a broader system approach.

Committee members asked about differences between HUD point-in-time counts and broader street-survey reports; Huron said HUD methodology counts persons literally homeless on the night of the PIT count while some street surveys count a broader set of people who are housing-insecure or doubled up. Council members emphasized both short-term shelter needs and the longer-term need to expand affordable housing stock.

Huron invited the public to the LexEndHomelessness website for materials, shelter-study documents and meeting schedules and said the administration is coordinating a mayoral task force expected to meet in November to work on shelter and system recommendations.