Every year, ARCH conducts two HUD-required counts on behalf of the Alabama Balance of State Continuum of Care: a count of everyone experiencing homelessness on a single night, and an inventory of every shelter and housing bed dedicated to serving them. Together, these two counts are the foundation of how HUD — and ARCH — understand and respond to homelessness across our 37-county service area.
The PIT Count is an unduplicated, single-night count of people experiencing homelessness — both sheltered (in emergency shelter, transitional housing, or a Safe Haven) and unsheltered (outdoors, in a vehicle, or another place not meant for habitation). HUD requires every Continuum of Care to conduct a sheltered count every year, and AL-507 conducts a full sheltered and unsheltered count annually, during the last ten days of January.
The PIT Count is a snapshot, not a running total — it reflects who was experiencing homelessness on that one specific night, counted by volunteers and outreach teams across all 37 counties, plus data pulled from HMIS for participating shelter and housing programs.
The HIC is an inventory of every bed and unit within the CoC's geographic area that is dedicated to serving people experiencing homelessness, conducted the same night as the PIT Count. It's organized by program type — Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing, Rapid Re-Housing, Permanent Supportive Housing, and Safe Haven — and reflects the CoC's housing and shelter capacity, not just who happened to be in a bed that night.
Together, the PIT and HIC let HUD (and ARCH) compare the need in a community against the housing and shelter capacity available to meet it.
Both counts are federally mandated for CoCs receiving HUD Continuum of Care Program funding. ARCH submits both to HUD each year through the Homelessness Data Exchange (HDX), and HUD uses the results — alongside every other CoC's — to track homelessness trends nationally and to help determine funding levels like AL-507's Estimated Annual Renewal Demand.
About this data. AL-507's 2026 PIT Count was conducted on January 27, 2026, and the 2026 HIC was submitted to HUD on April 29, 2026 (status: Submitted). HUD has not yet published this data nationally — HUD typically releases each January's results the following year, as part of its Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR). The figures below are ARCH's own count and inventory data as submitted to HUD for AL-507, shown at the CoC-wide level. For HUD's most recently published national results (January 2025 counts), see the resource link at the bottom of this page.
A single-night, unduplicated count of every person experiencing homelessness across the 37-county Balance of State CoC — sheltered and unsheltered.
AL-507's total shelter and housing bed capacity dedicated to people experiencing homelessness, by program type. Shown at the CoC level — not broken out by individual agency.
Questions about AL-507's PIT or HIC data? Reach ARCH at arch@archconnection.org.