The size of the US homeless population is difficult to know.  According to The Economist, a study found that in 2014 , 1.49 million people used homeless shelters and 578,424 were recorded as being without shelter: sleeping on the streets, in tents, in cars, and other exposed places.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/02/counting-street-sleepers

Using a US population of 320M, this comes to about 0.465% of the population using homeless shelters and about 0.18% being without shelter. 

Rendered in terms of the Eugene-Springfield metro statistical area (basically Lane County) with a population of around 352,000 people, these percentages are: 1.) 1637 in homeless shelters and 2.) 634 without shelter and sleeping on the streets, in parks, etc..

Are these figures consistent with the size of the homeless population here? Has anyone ever tried to get a census of the Lane County homeless population?