Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Homeless counts called murky
Numbers reported to U.S. agency to receive federal funding
FAYETTEVILLE — No one really knows how many people are homeless, but agencies try to assess the situation and improve it, advocates say.
The annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress was released this month. It takes a snapshot of homelessness across the country during a 24-hour period. About 400 agencies did the one-night counts in late January.
Continuums of care coordinate help for homeless and at-risk populations. They consist of agencies providing a variety of services, from case management to health care.
Northwest Arkansas held a count Jan. 25 and found 474 people were homeless. The statewide counts identified 2,712 homeless. Nationally, about 553,000 were counted as homeless.
The numbers represent a 10 percent increase statewide from last year, with the homeless population nationwide staying flat.
Advocates say the numbers don’t paint an accurate picture. The numbers are reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for local programs to receive federal money.
“HUD’s definition of ‘homelessness’ is more restrictive than people often think,” said Cari Bogulski, director of statistics and analytics for Hark at the Center for Collaborative Care, the agency that did the survey this year.
Only people living in transitional housing, an emergency shelter or places not meant for human habitation, such as the woods, are included in the count, Bogulski said.
That’s why the regional
numbers for this year, which was the first year Hark did the count, and the numbers from previous years differ so much. From 2007 to 2017, the University of Arkansas’ Community and Family Institute counted homeless people living in the region.
The institute estimated 2,951 homeless residents in Northwest Arkansas last year. Of those, 330 met the federal criteria and were reported to HUD.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, institute director, said his group’s survey involved more than a physical count. The institute used a variety of data to estimate the “invisible homeless” population — people living in the region who were unreachable during the survey or who otherwise didn’t meet the federal definition.
That estimation, plus 1,600 or so youth, accounted for the difference.
The U.S. Department of Education has a broader definition of homelessness than HUD that includes those living in motels or “couch surfing,” for instance. The institute plugged that number into its counts.
“By not including it, we let cities, counties, regions and states off the hook thinking that somehow they are addressing the crisis simply by addressing the needs of the visible homeless,” Fitzpatrick said.
Bogulski said the institute’s figures were calculated for the benefit of the community, not for reporting to the federal government.
“Part of what we wanted to do in the 2018 [survey] was align community expectation around the numbers we are required to report to HUD, so that if someone downloads our community data from HUD’s website, there isn’t this confusion of the discrepancy between 2,951 and 330,” she said.
The Northwest Arkansas Continuum of Care is creating a list with names of homeless individuals and families, at risk of becoming homeless or in transitional housing. As of Dec. 11, the continuum had 1,265 people on the list.
“When we’re meeting somebody and putting them on the by-name list, we’re accepting their risk of homelessness,” said Steve Burt, continuum director. “We’re not only counting those people who are actually and literally homeless at that moment.”
People on the continuum’s list are assessed a score and housed accordingly. The 474 counted as homeless in the most recent survey might overlap and get top priority, Burt said, but functionally the two lists serve two purposes.
The point-in-time count goes to Congress to help figure out who gets what amount of money. The continuum’s by-name list is suppose to keep track of cases and find solutions to effectively end homelessness in the region by 2025, advocates say.
The annual federal report may be used to allocate money, but its narrow methodology can backfire, said Megan Hustings, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
“It is meant to be a snapshot of the overall issue,” she said. “It’s not meant to be a complete accounting of everyone who might be experiencing homelessness — but its messaged as, ‘this is how many homeless people there are in the country.’”
The bottom line, Hustings said, is there really is no reliable figure. The 553,000 counted as homeless nationally in the most recent count is way too low, she said. The Department of Education counts about 2.4 million children as homeless, and those children have families to account for, she said.
The coalition estimates about 3.5 million people are homeless in the United States.
Continuums of care need to get on the same page statewide in order to effectively tackle the issue, said Sandra Wilson with the Arkansas Homeless Coalition. Different regions handle counts differently, and there’s very little interaction between agencies, she said.
State officials used to use a formula taking how many people were living below the poverty line and made a percentage estimation, Wilson said. At some point, the methodology changed, and the numbers drastically dropped, she said.
Wilson remembered years ago typically counting around 7,500 homeless people in the state.
“Do you really think we went from about 7,500 to 2,000?” she asked.
The next point-in-time count for Northwest Arkansas is scheduled Jan. 24.