The homeless population downtown just hit a two-year low. The result is a mixed bag.

The number of people living outside or in vehicles downtown has plunged to a two-year low as San Diego officials enforce the city’s camping ban and push for new shelters.

While police have punished relatively few individuals because of the new rules, the threat of handcuffs appears to have been enough to help drop the unsheltered population in the urban center to around 1,200 as of last month, according to data from the Downtown San Diego Partnership.

That’s about 1,000 fewer people than were there six months ago.

The nonprofit also co-produced a separate survey about those who didn’t leave after enforcement ramped up. That report found that about a third of the homeless people downtown were born and raised in San Diego while three-quarters said their last steady home had been in the city.

In an interview earlier this year, a leader at one of downtown’s main shelters said efforts to clear certain sidewalks had sometimes pushed encampments closer together.

“You just have a huge concentration of people in small concentrated areas,” said Craig Thomas, outreach supervisor for Alpha Project. Trash, drug use and arguments all became harder to manage, he added. “It just is a pot of negativity”

At the same time, Thomas was not the only one to notice an uptick in people requesting help or shelter. More residents were definitely asking about housing options, said Jennifer Wilkens, Father Joe’s Villages’ supervisor of outreach.

The numbers only cover downtown San Diego and the decline does not necessarily mean the crisis overall has decreased.

A separate organization, The Regional Task Force on Homelessness, concluded that at least 1,000 people countywide lost a place to stay for the first time each month this year, outpacing the number of homeless people who found housing during the same period.

The task force is currently planning another tally of the region’s homeless population for next month, which may show whether the numbers in neighboring cities have increased amid the drop downtown. Anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some people just traded the city for East County or South County.

There were 1,172 individuals without shelter in San Diego’s urban core in November, partnership data show.

The total hasn’t been that low since late 2021 and continues a downward trend that began in the Spring, shortly before a divided City Council approved the camping ban.

Several hundred homeless people in that area were also recently interviewed on a range of topics by staffers from the city and several homelessness organizations.

Nearly 40 percent reported using fentanyl, heroin or methamphetamine, yet help can be hard to find.

About 17 percent said they struggled to access substance abuse treatment. Almost a third reported limited medical care while more than a quarter couldn’t get adequate mental health assistance.

Nearly half said they would be open to a “congregate” shelter, meaning a large space that’s often filled with bunk beds.

That may be the direction San Diego goes with a soon-to-be-empty plot of land near the airport, known as H Barracks. In contrast, two of the area’s newest shelters are “safe sleeping sites,” which allow people to legally camp in tents. The Downtown Partnership is co-running the newest one, although there are still nowhere near enough beds to meet demand.

Most of those surveyed had some roots in the city. Seventy-five percent said San Diego was where they’d most recently lived for at least three months before losing a roof.

A similar share said they had no form of income. Only about a fifth knew somebody they felt safe with who might be able to take them in.

Participants included at least one teenager (the youngest person interviewed was 18) and the elderly (84), although the average person was in their mid-40s. Only a few were in some form of shelter.

The survey was based on conversations with 713 people during a three-day period that began Oct. 3.