The homeless populations for Houston and Texas showed a more drastic decline than the national average.
City, state both see faster declines than U.S. overall
Both Houston and Texas saw major declines in homelessness over the last five years, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Nationally, homelessness declined 11 percent from 2010 to 2015, but Houston saw a 28 percent drop and Texas’ rate de- creased 36 percent.
Chronic homelessness and homelessness among veterans and f amilies dropped even faster than national averages, HUD Secretary Julian Castro said in a conference call Thursday. Veteran homelessness saw the highest decrease nationally of the groups at 36 percent.
“Despite the positive strides our nation has made, I know we have a long way to go before we can end homelessness for good,” said Castro, former mayor of San Antonio.
The department conducts a survey on a single night in January to better understand what homelessness looks like each year. On that day this year, researchers counted 564,708 homeless people nationally, including 4,609 in Houston.
While the department found decreases in several categories over the past five years, the rate of decline slowed drastically between 2014 and 2015. Castro cited the lack of affordable housing and resource constraints as reasons for the slowdown.
Looking ahead, Castro’s department wants to find ways to better understand youth homelessness in the country. This means more emphasis on data gathering done in coordination with groups on the ground in various locations around the country. Data gathering can be difficult, as this is a transient population that may transfer in and out of temporary housing situations.
Last year, Mayor Annise Parker announced the city had made huge strides in ending veteran homelessness.
“Any homeless veteran today, who is willing to access services, can be placed in housing, “Parker said in 2014.
Sarah Narendorf, a social work professor at the University of Houston, helped conduct a “youth count” survey to better understand Houston’s homeless youth population. For the 430 homeless youth Narendorf surveyed, twothirds said housing would be most helpful for them right now, followed by job training, educational opportunities and mental health services.
Narendorf ’s next steps in her research will be to think more about the role schools play and how to better connect to potentially identify, and help, homeless youth.