Homelessness Increases in Guilford County
By Anthony | February 10th, 2006 | 12:56 amMichele over at Chosen Fast has begun posting results from the Homeless Prevention Coalition of Guilford County’s 2006 Point in Time Count:
1108 individuals were counted on Jan. 25, 2006 who fit the McKinney-Vento definition of homelessness and were counted using HUD’s accepted methodology for the Point in Time Count. This total came from a street/outside count plus the count from homeless shelters and transitional facilities. 1108 is an increase of 36% from the 2005 HUD Count total of 812.
This is a good time to be thinking about those numbers as the temperature finally drops and the weather begins to feel a bit more like winter.
February 11th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
More homeless or better counting?
February 11th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Same method, so I’m not sure how you could say the counting was “better”.
February 11th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
As PotatoStew said, the total that we report to HUD comes from counts that are done in the same places (shelters, transitional facilities, street count) and using the same methodology (HUD’s) each year , so we’re comparing apples to apples there. So the answer is, “more homeless.”
Our hope is that with our Task Force beginning work on our Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, this will be the last year that we see an increase.
February 12th, 2006 at 7:50 am
If it’s more homeless that’s a pretty dramatic increase. What’s the cause? Housing prices or rent increases? Something else?
February 12th, 2006 at 8:59 am
The school count went from 440 to 839, which is a much greater increase.
Saw this at your site CM, commenting here for the sake of simplicity. The school count shows an almost 100% increase. That’s incredible. Is the counting good here too?
February 12th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
David, the 2005 and 2006 school totals were compiled using different methods. And the News & Record was given a different set of totals than we (HPCGC) were. So I’d like more information before coming to conclusions. We are working to be sure that we have the most accurate numbers to compare and analyze. I will keep you updated as I learn more.
February 13th, 2006 at 12:04 am
David, sorry, you asked about the cause for the increase in homelessness. I don’t know. I haven’t seen any local research on that. But I can tell you from doing local homeless outreach that we don’t have enough good-paying jobs or affordable housing or long-term drug treatment or affordable medical care or accessible mental health services or services for U.S. veterans and formerly incarcerated folks. And those things are certainly contributing to the problem.
February 13th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I was just wondering on these dramatic increases if there’s something unique going on that happened in the past year or so.