Chester Co. Sees Major Reduction In Homelessness

WEST CHESTER, PA — Chester County has seen a major reduction in homelessness over the past two years, with a 33 percent decline in individuals living on the streets, officials said this week.

It comes as the county's Department of Community Development received international recognition from Built for Zero, a Denver-based global effort to combat homelessness.

Chester County had 694 homeless residents in 2022, a number which dropped all the way to 465 by 2024. The county also said that the number of people entering emergency shelters had been reduced by half over the past five years.

Officials pointed to numerous factors that helped them achieve progress, but they said closer cooperation was perhaps the most vital.

“We have more than 150 partners and stakeholders working toward the shared goal of ending homelessness,” DCD Director Dolores Colligan said in a statement. “The information they contribute enables us to make data-driven decisions about how resources are allocated and how programs are designed. Without their decade-long collaboration and dedication, the progress we have made would not be possible."

Built For Zero commended the county for improving partnerships as well as including individuals with homeless experience in county planning and decision making. The nonprofit recognized the county for a specific metric, the "Quality Data for the Chronic Population."

"The metric recognizes communities that share a unified definition of ending homelessness, operate through a coordinated, countywide team, rely on real-time client-level data, prioritize equitable service delivery, and make targeted, data-informed housing investments," the county shared.

Built for Zero includes a coalition of 100 communities around the world sharing processes and methodologies to improve homelessness response.