COUNT CANCELED
Liz DaCosta, left, participates in Maricopa County’s Point-in-Time count. This year’s homelessness tally is canceled due to COVID-19.
Every January, more than 1,000 volunteers scatter across metro Phoenix before the sun has risen, with one goal: Count all of the people experiencing homelessness.
The annual Point-in-Time Count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is considered an important, but imperfect, tool for localities to evaluate the extent of their homelessness issues.
But this year, the count will look different in many cities — and won’t happen at all in most of Maricopa County.
Maricopa Association of Governments, the organization that runs the annual count, opted out of conducting a Point-in-Time Count this January be
cause of COVID-19 safety concerns.
“The majority of nonprofit providers, outreach teams and municipal coordinators just did not feel comfortable ... due to the fact that of course COVID-19 is very dangerous and the Pointin-Time Count takes over 1,000 volunteers,” MAG Human Services Planner Sarah Kent said.
HUD is allowing regions to forego the count without penalty because of COVID-19 safety concerns, and 57% of homeless services provider networks have either opted out or scaled back their counts, according to HUD Public Affairs Officer Ed Cabrera.
Homelessness has likely increased in Maricopa County in the past year. It has consistently increased for the past three years, and the economic consequences of COVID-19 have likely exacerbated this year’s increase.
But without a Point-in-Time Count, the region likely won’t know COVID-19’s true impact on homelessness for another year.
Other data tracks homelessness
Kent said MAG is confident it can continue to track the homeless population in Maricopa County with other data.
Social workers, street outreach teams and other professionals who work with the homeless population use software called the Homeless Management Information System to track their interactions with people experiencing homelessness, she said.
This allows MAG and other groups to track people in real-time, which is often better than waiting for the once-ayear data that comes from the Point-inTime Count, Kent said.
That said, the data collected by the Homeless Management Information System only tracks people who engage with street outreach and has other limitations. The Point-in-Time Count tracks a much larger swath of the population — though both collection mechanisms are known to undercount the true number of people experiencing homelessness.
The different methodologies make it hard to compare the two data sets to show an increase year-over-year.
For example, the 2020 Point-inTime Count showed 7,419 people experiencing homelessness in Maricopa
County. As of Jan. 27, the Homelessness Management Information System was tracking only 4,849 people.
Lisa Glow, CEO of Central Arizona Shelter Services, said the Point-inTime Count allows for a controlled snapshot of the population, which is the best way to see year-over-year change.
“Not having that data won’t give us that information,” Glow said.
Some cities hold their own counts
Some metro Phoenix cities have decided to hold their own Point-in-Time counts.
Tempe, Scottsdale and Litchfield Park wanted to conduct traditional counts with face-to-face interviews of people experiencing homelessness.
Avondale, Buckeye, Mesa, Surprise and Wickenburg planned to conduct an abbreviated count using only observations and no interviews.
Tempe Homeless Solutions Supervisor Nichole Stevens said the city decided to conduct its own count because “this is probably the most important year ever to do it due to the pandemic.”
“We know this year is different because of COVID, and we wanted to know how COVID impacted the people we serve who are experiencing homelessness,” Stevens said.
She said the city shortened the length of the typical Point-in-Time Count questionnaire and added a few new questions directly related to COVID-19.
This allowed outreach teams to move through the count quickly and safely while still collecting important data.
Stevens said the outreach teams found a couple with a young child and a woman who was 39 weeks pregnant sleeping outside during the count. The teams were able to get them into shelter.
She said the data collected during the modified Point-in-Time Count will help Tempe understand the full extent of its homeless population and work on data-driven solutions.
“We are really committed to identifying and understanding the community we serve,” Stevens said.