THE Mid North Coast has had mixed results in the 2025 Street Count, the NSW Government’s sixth annual count of people sleeping rough.
Counts of homeless people sleeping rough on a single evening were completed in local government areas across the state between 4 February and 26 February 2025.
Half of the counts took place in the evening, scheduled between 10:00pm and 3:00am, with the remaining half occurring in the morning between 3:30am and 9am.
More than 370 local organisations partnered with Homes NSW to complete the count in 415 towns and suburbs across 77 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in NSW.
The Nambucca Valley LGA experienced the state’s third most significant increase from last year’s count, with 60 people counted sleeping rough compared to 20 in 2024.
This increase was only outdone by the City of Sydney and Inverell LGAs.
In Port Macquarie Hastings the count increased from 53 to 69 year-on-year, while Kempsey Shire experienced an increase from 15 to 21.
Coffs Harbour meanwhile was home to the second largest decrease in the state, with the count down from 147 in 2024 to 99 in 2025.
Elsewhere, Bellingen had a year-on-year reduction from 22 to 17, while the MidCoast reduced from 49 to 27.
After having the highest count for the state in 2024, Byron Shire recorded a 16 percent decrease in rough sleepers.
In total, 2,192 people were recorded as sleeping rough across the state.
