Tweaking data better way to help homeless

On a dewy winter morning, clipboard-toting volunteers met up in communities across the U.S., including Eugene, Oregon, to walk through streets, parks, encampments, underpasses and woodland areas — asking those they came across, “Where did you stay last night?”

Every year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) conducts its annual point-in-time (PIT) count. For one day, community members complete a headcount that feeds Congress’ national report for how many people are experiencing homelessness for that year. The 2020 count estimated 580,466 people nationwide were homeless, according to HUD.

But advocates are beginning to wonder how accurate this number is, and why we continue to collect a snapshot of an issue that changes daily.

To target gaps within the system, housing advocates like Community Solutions have begun pivoting their data collection away from the once-a-year estimate to a rolling data set that captures homelessness’s fluid motion. The data-driven approach has eradicated homelessness in some communities across the U.S.

In 2015, the New York Citybased nonprofit organization launched its Built for Zero project. Since then, its approach has shown that data analytics can effectively address this growing problem.

The strategy understands no two communities are the same. Instead of working individually toward the same answer, cities form a collective team of critical stakeholders such as HUD’S Continuum of Care, which is representatives from organizations that coordinate the implementation of housing services, local governments, housing authorities, veteran services and nonprofit organizations.

Alongside the Built for Zero project team, the group of community members gather real-time data on their city by creating a monthly data pool where they can identify their homeless community by name — as well as their age, race, veteran status and how long they’ve been homeless.

This aids local governments in understanding who this population is and where they reach roadblocks to being housed. Alongside improvement coaches and data analytic experts, districts are guided in tearing down those barriers, says Beth Sandor, Community Solutions’ principal and Built for Zero co-director.

Built for Zero is working with 83 communities across the U.S. With the disciplined data format, five cities have ended chronic homelessness, 12 have ended veteran homelessness, and three have ended both.

“Data-driven decisions really helped us learn and identify where improvement needed to take place,” says Heather Kimme, the assistant executive director for the local housing authority in Bakersfield, California, a city that ended chronic homelessness in 2020, according to a Community Solutions’ report.