Worcester County Point in Time and Housing Inventory Count

Required by HUD; Hosted by The MA-506 PIT team.

It’s our goal to count all the homeless individuals and all available beds for the night of 1/28/2026. HUD uses the results of this unique census to make funding decisions.

This is the landing page for the Worcester County portion of this count.

We need participation!

We need homeless persons to fill out an Unsheltered PIT survey.
It is a quick demographic survey about where you’d stayed the night of Jan 28th 2026. It may be filled out the following 7 days (Until Tuesday the 3rd of February 2026). Responses should be about the night of January 28th 2026.

(Unsheltered Persons Click Here For Survey)

We need volunteers to help count the street homeless.

(Click Here for volunteer opportunities)

We need an employee of each shelter to fill out a HIC survey.

Email PITHIC@cmhaonline.org if you run a shelter and haven’t recieved a HIC survey link.

This event has a few parts. 

The “PIT” or Point In Time count:
A count of people experiencing homelessness on a single night. 

It is the sum of: 
The “Unsheltered PIT”:, a count of street homeless via street outreach on the event night. 
and a 
“Sheltered PIT” count of homeless in shelters on the event night. This is collected from shelter managers. 

As well we perform  

The “HIC” or Housing Inventory Count:
A count of inventory on this single night. What beds and shelters were available. This is collected from shelter managers, and goes beyond HMIS 

The HIC also asks shelter managers about how many homeless are in shelter on the event night. This should match the sheltered PIT. 

For all of these, Information about the night may be gathered and submitted over the following week. 

CMHA Sends out surveys for all of these. We rely on volunteerism and survey responses from community partners, particularly those with knowledge of available beds. 

We rely on your responses to inform HUD of the reality of homelessness. 

Unsheltered PIT count – Open to anyone  

This census is an attempted count of all the homeless in our county. 

We are seeking street outreach professionals and volunteers to conduct PIT surveys. We would like to have a surveyor-team stop by each town in the county. 

Do not wake people in their car. Count generally how many adults/children/vehicles if possible. 

Do not seek to count people who do not want to be counted. 

Take general note of the locations of large-scale encampments. Do not capture exact locations. 

We collect unsheltered surveys for the 7 days following the count night. For the 7 days following the count, ask clients where they slept on the count night. If they were unsheltered on the night, please conduct an unsheltered PIT survey. 

Sheltered PIT count – Shelter associated persons 

Conduct Unsheltered PIT count surveys for each person at the shelter on the night of the count. 

Ensure HMIS attendance data is up to date for the count night. 

All Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing, and Safe Haven-type projects should be included. This includes hotel shelters, blue shelters, or warming centers that are open on the count night and provide beds or cots for people to sleep in.  

HIC Count – Shelter associated 

We must count available inventory, IE beds and units for the night of the count. 

We must count the types of beds and units available. 

Cribs and pack-and-plays should not be counted. 

Program types that should be included in the HIC count include Emergency Shelters, Transitional Housing, Safe Haven, Permanent Supportive Housing, Other Permanent Housing, and Rapid Re-Housing (only count RRH beds occupied by clients who have been placed in their permanent housing). 

Non-dedicated beds are for anyone. Dedicated beds are for special populations (Youth, Vets, etc). Dedicated beds should be counted as part of the total number of beds, and separately in their respective sections. 

There will also be a question on how many persons were in the shelter on the night of the count.  

If your project was also included in the sheltered PIT count, your total PIT count number must match the PIT count question in the HIC count. 

Please contact PITHIC@cmhaonline.org with any questions.