Last year’s slight decline could be attributed to the move of the count from October to January. The usual difficulties of counting those whose goal is invisibility were compounded with the problems of counting those trying not to freeze. This year’s 5 percent decrease, however, means the numbers are down two years running. As any statistician will tell you, two points on a graph constitutes a trend.

While nobody is making too much of this apparent reverse in the growth of homelessness, it’s certainly better news than the double-digit increases documented each year prior to 2003.

Perhaps the best news is that this year, 735 people felt strongly enough about helping to end homelessness to forgo a night’s sleep and count homeless people instead. Last year saw 550 volunteers, and the year before that just 300. At the time, that seemed like a lot.

Now there’s an encouraging trend.

Clearly, getting homeless people into housing is the solution to homelessness. The data is in. Housing first is a strategy that works. If each of these 735 volunteers committed themselves to hounding the federal government to match its rhetoric with resources, the end of homelessness might finally be in sight.