Point In Time Committee Meeting
NOTE: This post has been reviewed by staff members of the Community Initiative to End Homelessness. Please click here for a detailed explanation of why this is done.

The Point in Time Committee of the Community Initiative to End Homelessness held a regular meeting the afternoon of May 11 at the Carrboro Police Department. The primary focus of this committee at this point is gathering data to get a better scope of the homeless problem. Federal guidelines from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandate some of this data and we're also discussing the best ways to collect additional data that would be useful locally. We now have someone with formal research experience working on the committee, so I'm excited about that because I believe that maintaining scientific discipline is of the utmost importance if our information is to mean anything. Someone with experience in this field is better able to keep us on track in that regard than I am. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a member of the Point in Time Committee.

Our main task at this point is developing a survey to find out what factors lead to homelessness, since there is really no such thing as a "typical" homeless person. In addition, we're also trying to determine the cost to the community to provide services and what other services might be needed to solve the problem. This should give us a better idea of how to use resources more efficiently.

The last point in time count of the homeless occurred in January 2005 and we're interested in doing a count and administering a survey during warm weather months in order to compare data. Our preference would be to do the study this year and I'm optimistic that we'll be able to do that. However, there is a lot involved in designing a study like this and its going to be necessary to work with other organizations (and that will require formal requests, reviews, and approval), so there's always a chance we'll have to wait until next year. The key is that we want to do the count in warm weather months to explore any seasonal differences in the numbers.

Its becoming quite clear that the definition HUD uses for homelessness (particularly what they call "chronic homelessness") does not capture the full scope of the homeless problem. The definition of "chronically homeless" used by HUD does not include families. HUD's figures also do not count people who are doubled up with no lease (sleeping on a friend's couch, for instance) who are at risk of becoming homeless. And naturally, HUD's numbers offer no real way to tell how many people are just one missed paycheck or severe health or financial crisis away from becoming homeless.

An important goal of the Community Initiative is trying to document the full extent of the problem and collect clear evidence of the gap between the actual problem and the way the federal government chooses to define the problem. We're getting a sense that HUD believes that the counts that are out there now are too high But in reality, according to most of the service providers and others who've worked with the homeless that I've spoken to, the counts are most likely too low, partly due to HUD's narrow definition of who is counted as homeless. This is going to require coming up with our own definition of homelessness that clearly shows why HUD's numbers don't capture the full scope of the problem. When we have to ask elected officials to pay attention to homeless and poverty issues, we're going to need the solid data to back up our case.
-# posted by Michael McGee @ 2:06 PM