LAS VEGAS >> Officials say an annual one-night tally found just over 6,200 homeless people living in and around Las Vegas in January, or about 1,300 fewer than the year before.

Clark County Social Service chief Michael Pawlak called the 17 percent decrease a step in the right direction.

The count found a steep decline in the number of people living in shelters or other temporary indoor locations — from almost 3,600 in 2015 to fewer than 2,500 this year.

A count in 2011 found just over 8,000 people without permanent shelter, but county officials in 2014 stopped including an estimate of nearly 2,000 couch-surfing and shed-dwelling “hidden homeless.”

Officials say southern Nevada received about $12 million in federal homeless program grants during the past two years based on the annual counting effort.