Homelessness has become enough of an issue in Guilford County that the county has created an entire department devoted to it, Greensboro has launched several new programs to address it and local governments continue to spend millions of dollars trying to get people off the streets and into permanent housing.
On Friday, Oct. 9, local leaders, service providers and residents will turn their attention to the problem in a somewhat different way – with T-shirts, toiletries and two public events being held in recognition of World Homeless Day.
The Guilford County Continuum of Care – a group which helps address the problem locally – is holding the events from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Greensboro Urban Ministry, 305 W. Gate City Blvd. in Greensboro, and Open Door Ministries, 400 N. Centennial St. in High Point.
World Homeless Day is officially observed each year on Oct. 10, but Guilford County is holding its public events a day earlier.
The theme this year is “Inform, Illustrate, Educate, Advocate & Donate.”
At both locations, those who attend will be invited to decorate T-shirts with facts, messages and stories about homelessness in Guilford County.
Those completed shirts will then be displayed on clotheslines at Greensboro Urban Ministry and Open Door Ministries throughout the weekend.
The idea is to create a visual representation of homelessness and the community’s efforts to address it.
There will also be an information table at Open Door Ministries where people can learn about services available to those experiencing homelessness. And at Greensboro Urban Ministry, City of Greensboro employees will help distribute the T-shirts and assist with the decorating activities.
People who don’t have any interest in decorating shirts can contribute in a more conventional way by donating toiletries at either location.
These events come at a time when homelessness has become an increasingly prominent issue for Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County government.
Last year, Guilford County created a brand new seven-position Homeless Services Department to coordinate funding, data collection, crisis response, federal programs and the work of the numerous agencies involved in addressing homelessness. At that time, Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston told the Rhino Times the issue had become serious enough to warrant its own county department.
Guilford County’s fiscal year 2027 budget documents show why officials remain concerned.
According to those documents, the Point-in-Time count of people experiencing homelessness went from 665 in fiscal year 2024 to 747 in fiscal year 2025. The county’s budget used an estimate of 599 for fiscal year 2026. The same county figures show that the average length of time a person remained homeless increased from 114 days in fiscal year 2024 to 136.2 days in fiscal year 2025.
The Point-in-Time count is an annual snapshot of sheltered and unsheltered homelessness conducted under federal guidelines. Guilford County’s Continuum of Care coordinates the local count and uses the information in determining needs, services and funding priorities.
Greensboro has also been expanding its efforts.
Earlier this year, the city launched a rental assistance program with the Greensboro Housing Authority that provides more than $1.6 million for very low-income residents who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
The program, which is expected to continue through the fall of 2030 – or until the money is exhausted – can provide eligible households with rental assistance for as long as two years.
The city also started Housing First Plus in June. That program is aimed primarily at chronically homeless people who repeatedly come into contact with police, EMS, behavioral health workers, jails and other emergency services.
Housing First Plus attempts to place those people into housing without requiring them to first meet conditions such as completing alcohol and drug treatment programs. The city then provides intensive case management and other services intended to keep them housed.
Greensboro has even begun offering landlords a $1,000 incentive for participating in the program along with guaranteed rent payments, a property damage fund and support for landlords dealing with participating tenants.
That’s in addition to the city’s GSO HOME program, which sends outreach workers to people living on the streets who are considered difficult to reach through the traditional shelter and social-service system.
The debate over homelessness has been going on for years in the area. It has included the controversy surrounding the Interactive Resource Center in downtown Greensboro, complaints from downtown residents and business owners, emergency cooling and warming programs, rental assistance and concerns that the availability of services could attract homeless people from outside the area.
In October 2025, Greensboro’s own Community Relations Division reported that homelessness and panhandling were among the major concerns being raised by residents.
The Guilford County Continuum of Care is the umbrella organization charged with coordinating much of the work being done by governments, nonprofits and service providers throughout Greensboro, High Point and the rest of the county.
Its responsibilities include administering and coordinating federal homelessness programs, overseeing the annual Point-in-Time count and attempting to make what was for a long time a traditionally been a collection of separate programs function as a countywide system.
Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston has said each of the last two years that addressing homelessness would be one of the county’s top priorities while he was chairman. He said that, several years ago, he was dismayed when he went to a meeting on homelessness and realized there were a lot of groups that were duplicating services and some that weren’t on the same page. He said at the time that he would try to bring those groups together in a more cohesive way in order to address the problem.
