A Wake County initiative announced Monday sets an ambitious goal of moving 400 people from homeless encampments into housing in the next 18 months.
Led by the Wake County Continuum of Care (CoC), the county’s umbrella organization for homeless services, with help from local government and private sector partners, the plan involves closing encampments across the county and offering their residents a year of housing, behavioral health, and workforce assistance to transition them out of homelessness. Some details of the plan, such as where the money will come from and when the first encampments will be decommissioned, aren’t yet public.
The plan, called Wake at Home, strikes a balance between “recogniz[ing] the humanity of people experiencing homelessness” and “responding to the concerns of the broader community,” according to a press release from the CoC. It comes on the heels of Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of an (unrelated, according to the county) bill banning “unauthorized camping” which seems likely to be overridden.
Fueled by an acute housing shortage and affordability crisis, homelessness in Wake County has spiked in recent years. A 2026 survey counted 1,150 homeless people in Raleigh and the surrounding towns, up from 769 in 2020. By contrast, there are only around 600 beds across the county’s overnight shelters, leaving hundreds of people sleeping in cars, on couches, in jails and hospitals, on the street, or in tents every night.
According to Eileen Rosa, Director of the CoC, Wake at Home takes a “direct-to-housing” approach to resolving homelessness, “recognizing that we might not have enough immediately-available shelter or or even vouchers available.”
Rosa said closing encampments alone doesn’t solve homelessness, but providing resources to unhoused people can. She pointed to similar initiatives in Dallas, Tulsa, Denver, and New Orleans. Dallas announced it had effectively ended downtown homelessness in May 2025 after launching a program through its own Continuum of Care that paired strict enforcement of a street sleeping ban with wraparound social services and housing assistance. Denver and Tulsa also reportedly enforce outdoor sleeping bans as part of their initiatives to end unsheltered homelessness.
Wake at Home is expected to cost $22 million over the next 18 months, Rosa said. On an individual level, she estimated a year of rental assistance and supportive services will cost around $24,000 per household per year. For comparison, one study found that a chronically homeless person costs taxpayers $35,000 per year on average in crisis services, law enforcement, hospitalizations, and encampment cleanups.
Rosa said the CoC has already identified some “well-known” encampments that will be targeted for the Wake at Home initiative and begun some work, though she declined to name specific locations or go into further detail.”We can’t necessarily be specific about sites or things like that, but there is some work underway,” she said.
Rosa said the CoC and its partners are actively fundraising, and will begin gradually clearing encampments and moving people into housing as funding becomes available. “We can’t necessarily identify some of those private partners just yet, but that fundraising work is underway,” she said.
Once the residents of a camp are housed, the CoC and its partners will monitor the area to “prevent encampments from returning to those sites,” according to the press release.
Some people experiencing homelessness are also navigating mental and physical health conditions or addiction. They may have criminal records that affect their ability to find housing and work. Rosa said Wake at Home is “aiming to be as low-barrier as possible” and will offer healthcare and employment services alongside its housing assistance to accommodate those situations.
The amount of assistance will taper as the year ends, Rosa said, so that people become “progressively more independent” rather than the CoC abruptly cutting off all support.
Rosa didn’t seem concerned about finding 400 housing units for people to live in. She said program participants will be able to use the housing assistance anywhere in Wake County or even outside of the county if they prefer.
“It’s not that we necessarily need 400 units today,” she said, referencing the plan to fold people into the program incrementally.
Homeless encampments can be unsafe and an eyesore. But they can also offer stability and community to people who would otherwise be out on their own. Some people spend years living in the same encampment, building a life there complete with possessions, pets, and friends. Even though living outside is grueling, they may be loath to leave, particularly if they’ve had bad experiences with service providers in the past. Rosa acknowledged that not everyone will want to accept the CoC’s assistance.
“If the answer is no at first, it doesn’t mean no forever,” Rosa said. “I think that we have to prove to some people who may have been distrusting in the past that [resources] really have improved.”
Most of the $22 million for Wake at Home will go towards housing those 400 people, according to Rosa. But a smaller chunk will be set aside for rapid, one-time housing assistance for people experiencing homelessness for the first time. Rosa said some people just need help with a security deposit or a one-time rental payment to quickly return to housing. This part of the initiative is an extension of Wake County’s existing Bridge to Home program, which has already helped more than 3,000 people. Wake at Home aims to help another 1,000 people over the next 18 months.
Homelessness policy has been in the news recently in connection to House Bill 437, an unfunded mandate which would ban camping on public property outside of specially-designated areas. Critics believe the bill doesn’t address root causes of homelessness and overburdens local governments. Stein vetoed it last week, but the state House and Senate seem to have enough votes (from Republicans and a smattering of Democratic and unaffiliated legislators) to override his veto when they return to session at the end of the month. Wake at Home has been in development for months and isn’t an answer to HB 437, Rosa said.
“Regardless of the legislation, we would be advancing this initiative and advancing our shared goal as a community to end homelessness,” she said.
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