MIAMI – Just after midnight on Aug. 22, a soupy night in downtown Miami, 67-year-old Rebecca Sadoff breathlessly recounted the last decade and a half of her life as she settled in for bed on the collection of blankets and splayed cardboard boxes she had arranged outside the Stephen P. Clark Government Center. She’s been homeless for roughly 15 years, bouncing from the streets to shelters to couches and back again.

Sadoff was one of 1,068 people the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust counted on the streets that night during its August Homeless Census, a biannual tally of the county’s homeless population.

That’s a 64-person, or 6%, increase from last August’s count. And though a state law banning public sleeping took effect almost a year ago, this summer’s tally of the county’s street-sleeping residents was the highest since August 2022.

“Here’s what’s certain,” said Ron Book, chairman of the Homeless Trust, “criminalization doesn’t solve the problem.”

Overall homelessness, both those sleeping on the streets as well as those in shelters, dipped 7% to 3,570 people.

New patterns emerge

While the street homeless population hasn’t changed much in the last year, its geographic distribution has. The cities of Miami and Miami Beach saw 13% and 8% year-over-year declines, respectively, in the number of people sleeping outside.

South Miami-Dade, which the Trust maps as between Kendall Drive and the Monroe County line, saw a 4% increase in unsheltered homelessness.

But North Miami-Dade — between Kendall Drive and the Broward County line — saw the biggest change: a 74% spike. Up from 208 last year, 362 people now sleep on that region’s streets, making it the county’s second-largest homeless population behind the city of Miami’s 537 people.

Homeless Trust Executive Director Vicki Mallette said the organization is “analyzing” the North Miami-Dade surge, though no hypotheses have yet been offered.

Regarding the city of Miami’s numbers, Book said a partnership with the city government and local law enforcement to identify people and place them in shelters could partially explain the decrease.

That said, the county’s shelter network is “pretty full,” Book confirmed.

That wasn’t news to Leroy Walker when Book approached him last month during the census.

“I stay up all night here,” he mumbled from a bench outside the Government Center, a few yards away from Sadoff. Walker said he was laid off from his job as a security guard in 2022 and soon found himself out on the street, hauling whatever belongings he could cram into his wheeled backpack.

“Why are you still out here?” Book asked the hunched 56-year-old from Liberty City.

Walker answered flatly: “Shelter’s full.”

Full as they may be, year-over-year, 331 fewer people were recorded in the county’s shelters — a 12% decrease that brings the sheltered homeless population down to 2,503.

Where did they go?

Some, Book noted, entered the new permanent supportive housing projects the Trust stood up this year — including Hideaway on the Bay in Cutler Bay, where 70-plus formerly homeless seniors now live.

But it’s unclear where many of the others went, Mallette said.

The number of people staying in emergency shelters dropped by 273. Part of that reduction could have come from a decrease in shelter capacity at Camillus House last October, Book proffered.

Formerly the county’s largest shelter, Camillus House and the Homeless Trust had a falling out late last year over a bed-pricing dispute. The two sides were unable to reach an agreement. Their contract lapsed, and with it went the 142 beds the Trust had previously filled at Camillus.

And in August, Miami Beach’s Bikini Hostel, which housed nearly 100 homeless residents, closed down. Most of them — 69 people — were relocated to emergency shelters, while 22 others were placed in some form of permanent housing.

Book is hopeful that he can continue bolstering the county’s shelter capacity. He predicted that an 80-bed navigation center — in the works for almost a year now — will “open shortly.” And at Chapman Partnership’s shelter, which the Trust owns, Book said an additional 60 beds would soon come online.

But many unknowns remain. Federal funding for organizations like the Trust is in doubt. Money for permanent supportive housing, in which 4,100 formerly homeless Miamians live, is too. On both counts, though, Book is cautiously optimistic that Congress might reverse course on scrapping those programs.

The 2026 fiscal year begins in October, and Congress will need to wrap up budget negotiations by then if it’s to keep the federal government funded.

“We’re encouraged by where we think the House and Senate [proposed] budgets are,” said Book of the ongoing debate.

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