Takeaways from Point-in-Time count
The community report of the 2022 Point-in-Time Count by the Butte Countywide Homeless Continuum of Care was released Monday during a regular meeting.
Sherry Morgado is the community development manager of Housing Tools — the company contracted by the county to complete the report.
Morgado said the community report is intended to help inform the public at large, inform best practices for service providers and inform the continuum of care on where best to use their funding.
“This is really to help the community better understand homeslessness. It is a snapshot in time, and it certainly has its limitations … but it gives a good sense of what’s really happening around homelessness in Butte County — who’s experiencing homelessness; what it looks like in each community,” Morgado said.
The community report describes the data collected from a survey of people experiencing homelessness conducted on a single day, January 25, 2022 and is available to view at https://www.buttehomelesscoc.com/.
Here are five key takeaways from the community report released Monday afternoon.
Survey factors
Morgado said the Pointin-Time count is expected to be an undercount of the total amount of people experiencing homelessness in Butte County.
“It’s always appropriate to assume that with any study it undercounts the people experiencing homelessness. … There’s just so many factors you can’t control — it’s impossible to find everyone who might be experiencing homelessness on that given day,” Morgado said.
The report said a spike of the omicron variant right before the study caused many volunteers and staff to call in sick: 124 of 233 people registered were able to show up on the day of the survey which likely resulted in an undercount of individuals experiencing homelessness.
Another factor affecting the survey, the report said, is that wildfires of the last five years contributed to a situation where people in more rural areas impacted by the fires are camping on their property, adding a strain on time resources to find them — resources which were largely not available in this
2022 count.
“This is only a part of the data set that is going to inform us or anyone else dealing with housing needs,” Butte County Housing and Homeless Administrator Don Taylor said. “The fact that we’ve got thousands in the postdisaster areas that are trying to recover that may be living on their properties. … They are still considered homeless. We are not counting any of those folks because we can’t get out to all the areas in the foothills.”
Finally, there were many survey questions that respondents simply didn’t answer or data was missing. Morgado said a number of factors affected data in this way either with the respondents’ hesitancy of the questions; surveys were too long or that volunteers did not correctly administer the survey.
The report said the staff is evaluating their 2022 experience in order to improve the next Point-inTime count set for 2023.
Demography
The community report includes 1156 people who completed the Point-inTime survey. Of the people surveyed, a total of 1,006 met the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition of being homeless.
The community report uses a broader definition of being homeless which includes people in temporary or transitional housing.
Of those who completed the survey, 86% were reported as single adults with no children while 14% were adults with children. The fact the Point-inTime count was conducted during school hours which was noted in the report discussion and may have affected survey results.
In Chico, 44% of respondents were unsheltered; 65% were unsheltered in Oroville and 100% were unsheltered for the ridge area and Gridley and Biggs. On the night of the survey, 40% of unsheltered people stayed in a camp outdoors.
Countywide, 28% of respondents indicated they met the definition of chronically homeless — at least one year homeless while struggling with a disabling condition such as a serious mental illness, substance abuse disorder or physical disability.
Countywide, 42% of respondents indicated they were first time homeless.
Homelessness affects 10% of respondents who identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native while their overall population countywide is 2.5%. For other races, 74% identified as white and 4% identified as black.
There were 107 respondents aged 0-17 and 48 respondents aged 18-24.
or financial; 14% a family crisis such as conflict, divorce, death, serious illness in the family; 12% alcohol or substance abuse; and 12% forced to leave their home or evicted.
One hundred thirtythree people indicated the COVID-19 pandemic was a direct cause of their homelessness.
Barriers
“When people were asked what barriers prevent you from accessing affordable housing, the thing people said the most was finding affordable housing,” Morgado said.
People who took the survey listed one or more barriers that prevented them from securing housing.
The top five barriers were 15% finding affordable housing; 12% no money for rent or deposit; 9% poor or no credit; 9% finding a job; and 8% finding services to help.
Housing, service needs
People who took the survey listed one or more needs they have in housing.
The top three options selected for housing and shelter options they were interested in were 19% their own house or apartment; 16% a tiny house; and 13% their own room in a shared house.
Listing what services people would be interested in, the top eight answers were free laundry service, access to electricity, access to shower, safe personal property storage, warming and cooling centers, transportation to appointments, temporary housing when sick, and a life coach or case manager or mentor.