During the period of January 28-29, 2009, Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition conducted the 2009 Southern Nevada Homeless Census. In attempt to end homelessness, the U.S. Congress has required that governments receiving federal funds under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act must conduct regular counts of their homeless population. The region has pursued implementation of the homeless census and survey for this reason, to obtain more accurate and useful data.

It is the intention that the results of this research will assist service providers, policy makers, funding sources, and local, state and federal governments to better understand and plan for the needs of the homeless population by examining current statistics in various geographical contexts. The information for the 2009 Southern Nevada Homeless Census and Survey will hopefully help policy makers and service providers more effectively develop services and programs to serve the County's homeless population, especially in comparison to census information collected in 2007.

The census and survey data will help the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition to further understand likely causes contributing factors of homelessness, and thereby, develop or modify strategies to address remedies and mitigating efforts.