Pima Co. cost to clear homeless camps falls

For Tucson residents, the lower cost of clearing homeless camps does not necessarily mean fewer people are living outside. Pima County spent $683,793.49 removing trash and debris from encampments during fiscal year 2026, a decrease of more than $70,000, or 6.6 percent, from the previous year. County crews and contractors cleared 594 encampments, but the county says the number of cleanup operations cannot be used by itself to measure the size of Tucson’s homeless population.

Encampments can appear on vacant land throughout the county, although many are within Tucson city limits. Seven county agencies, including Parks and Recreation and Flood Control, may share responsibility for removing waste and debris. The county’s count also treats a single campsite as one encampment, just as it may classify a larger area where several people lived as one encampment. That makes the cleanup total an imperfect measure of how many people were involved or how long a site was occupied.

Jenifer Darland, who leads Pima County’s Office of Housing Opportunities and Homeless Solutions, said the decline is encouraging but does not yet show that homelessness is falling. The reduction could result from county departments becoming more efficient, from workers intervening before debris builds up, or from an isolated change that may not continue. Darland said officials will need to watch the numbers over several fiscal years before deciding whether their approach is producing lasting results. The county’s stated priority remains helping people leave the elements and move into housing.

Other local measures point to continued need. Pima County’s Point in Time Count found 2,218 people experiencing homelessness in 2025, up from 2,102 in 2024. Over the longer term, the count has risen from 1,863 people in 2015. Officials caution that the January count is almost certainly an undercount because it is not possible to locate and survey everyone living outside, in shelters or in transitional housing on a single day.

The 2026 count unfolded amid major changes in how Tucson and Pima County respond to homelessness. Local governments have approved substantial investments intended to create affordable housing in the future, while several parks that once held large encampments have closed. Rules prohibiting camping in washes and parks have also narrowed where people can stay, critics say, and a new city safety initiative includes more targeted enforcement involving unhoused residents. Those developments come as federal housing support is declining and the county continues to face a large gap between the number of homes needed and the number available.

The count’s organizers treated it as more than a tally. On Jan. 28, volunteers surveyed people on the streets, following a shelter count the previous night and ahead of a youth count planned for that evening. By 9 a.m., nearly 900 gift cards had been distributed to people who completed surveys. Kat Davis, the city of Tucson’s continuum of care lead team manager, oversaw the effort and said the Point in Time data should be understood as a sample. She also relies on a yearlong record of homeless services, known as the Longitudinal System Analysis, to better understand who is being served.

People encountered during the count described obstacles that are not reflected in cleanup budgets. Cheyenne, 37, became homeless after a family conflict in July and recently lost the car where she had been sleeping. She said finding food, showers and a secure place for her belongings has been difficult, and she has struggled to access food assistance and disability payments. She hopes to take a job at Popeyes and find an apartment for herself and her dog, Hennessy, but said city housing programs move too slowly for her needs. Rising rents may require her to share a home with a roommate.

Vernon Thompson, a Sun Tran bus driver who was spending time with Cheyenne at Jacobs Park, offered a different example. He experienced homelessness after moving from California to Tucson and said drug use and depression contributed to losing stability. After stopping drug use, he obtained a housing voucher and city employment, and within six months moved into a home. Geneva Collier, who has been homeless for about a year and a half, described the cold, the difficulty of following shelter rules and her struggles with addiction. She sometimes relies on Sister José’s Women’s Center for showers, clothing and food.

Another person encountered near the Greyhound station, identified as Izzy, was sorting through items recovered from a dumpster and trying to sell or give them away. These accounts illustrate why a drop in debris removal may have many explanations. People may move after a park closure or enforcement action, seek shelter with friends, enter housing, or simply leave fewer belongings behind. Davis has urged residents to view homelessness as the result of failures across housing, health care and other systems, rather than assuming every person outside reached that situation for the same reason. For now, the county’s lower cleanup bill is a budget change worth watching, not evidence that Tucson’s homelessness crisis has been solved.