Homeless

How Accurate is Our Homeless Count?

Published

5 years ago

August 30, 2019

Oakland’s Wood Street curbside community in West Oakland between West Grand Ave and 26th Street is home to many unhoused people, but no one knows exactly how many. Photo by Zack Haber.

Oakland’s population of unhoused residents may be much higher than the July Point- In-Time census that showed a 47% increase over the last count in 2017.

The total of 4,071 of homeless residents made headlines, but unhoused residents, their advocates, and those who’ve studied or participated in the PIT count see its figures as an undercount.

“The PIT count is not designed to be a comprehensive analysis of the homeless population,” said Margaretta Lin, executive director of the Dellums institute and a former Oakland Deputy City Administrator. “But because it’s the only good number we have on homelessness, that number sticks in the public’s imagination.”

The PIT count has been performed every two years in Oakland since The Department of Housing and Urban Development mandated the count for all communities that receive federal funding for homelessness.

The vast majority of PIT totals come from volunteers individually counting homeless people during about three hours on one day. In Oakland, that day is January 30th, early in the morning in the middle of winter, a time when unhoused people who can find temporary shelter would be most likely to.

Alastair Boone, who participated in 2019’s PIT count and wrote about the experience in an article for CityLab, reported that about 600 volunteers and 150 guides participated in the count. She worked with one other volunteer and one guide to search through a residential area in East Oakland but she didn’t find a single homeless person.

While she attributes her inability to find homeless people in the area to the fact that she was in a relatively wealthy neighborhood, she also thinks she missed people.

“We…probably missed people who were hidden from view,” said Boone, “they were in alcoves or cars, or in the homes and apartments of friends and relatives, sleeping on couches and floors.”

The discrepancy between the total PIT count increases of unsheltered and temporarily sheltered residents also suggests that temporarily sheltered residents are especially undercounted. While PIT’s count of unsheltered homeless residents increased 59% from 3,210 to 4,071 between the 2017 and 2019 counts, its counts of sheltered homeless residents in those years remained almost exactly the same. In 2017 PIT’s total temporarily sheltered homeless count was 859; in 2019 it was 861.

According to a 2017 report by The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP), since PIT counts use the amount of filled beds in homeless shelters to measure its count of sheltered homeless residents, they can’t do an accurate measure in areas like Oakland where beds at shelters are generally filled to capacity.

“The count of sheltered homeless individuals indicates a city’s supply of shelter beds rather than the demand for shelter or housing” the NLCHP report reads.

Since the PIT count generally uses the same methodology, Margaretta Lin thinks it can be effective to measure trends and fluctuations in homeless population but she also feels more studies and alternate methods of counting should be used to get a more accurate count.

She pointed out that a 2014-2015 study conducted by Alameda County’s Healthcare for the Homeless (ACHCH) found that 18,000 people were homeless while the 2015 PIT summary counted just 4,040.

ACHCH’s count was determined by measuring how many homeless people used county services instead of counting homeless people on one day.

James Vann of the Homeless Advocacy Working Group (HAWG) says the organization estimates Oakland’s current homeless population at between 9,000 and 11,000. HAWG has identified 92 encampments, which they define as any group of four or more people living together unhoused, and does regular counts at them.

“Our count is a real increase from two years ago,” Vann said, “when we counted between 40 and 45 encampments.”

Zack Haber

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

Published

7 days ago

April 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Oakland Post

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Bay Area

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Mayor London Breed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org

***PRESS RELEASE***

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

HUD’s Continuum of Care grant will support the City’s range of critical services and programs, including permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and improved access to housing for survivors of domestic violence

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program is designed to support local programs with the goal of ending homelessness for individuals, families, and Transitional Age Youth.

This funding supports the city’s ongoing efforts that have helped more than 15,000 people exit homelessness since 2018 through City programs including direct housing placements and relocation assistance. During that time San Francisco has also increased housing slots by 50%. San Francisco has the most permanent supportive housing of any county in the Bay Area, and the second most slots per capita than any city in the country.

“In San Francisco, we have worked aggressively to increase housing, shelter, and services for people experiencing homelessness, and we are building on these efforts every day,” said Mayor London Breed. “Every day our encampment outreach workers are going out to bring people indoors and our City workers are connecting people to housing and shelter. This support from the federal government is critical and will allow us to serve people in need and address encampments in our neighborhoods.”

The funding towards supporting the renewal projects in San Francisco include financial support for a mix of permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and transitional housing projects. In addition, the CoC award will support Coordinated Entry projects to centralize the City’s various efforts to address homelessness. This includes $2.1 million in funding for the Coordinated Entry system to improve access to housing for youth and survivors of domestic violence.

“This is a good day for San Francisco,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “HUD’s Continuum of Care funding provides vital resources to a diversity of programs and projects that have helped people to stabilize in our community. This funding is a testament to our work and the work of our nonprofit partners.”

The 2024 Continuum of Care Renewal Awards Include:

$42.2 million for 29 renewal PSH projects that serve chronically homeless, veterans, and youth
$318,000 for one new PSH project, which will provide 98 affordable homes for low-income seniors in the Richmond District
$445,00 for one Transitional Housing (TH) project serving youth
$6.4 million dedicated to four Rapid Rehousing (RRH) projects that serve families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence
$750,00 for two Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) projects
$2.1 million for three Coordinated Entry projects that serve families, youth, chronically homeless, and survivors of domestic violence

In addition, the 2023 CoC Planning Grant, now increased to $1,500,000 from $1,250,000, was also approved. Planning grants are submitted non-competitively and may be used to carry out the duties of operating a CoC, such as system evaluation and planning, monitoring, project and system performance improvement, providing trainings, partner collaborations, and conducting the PIT Count.

“We are very appreciative of HUD’s support in fulfilling our funding request for these critically important projects for San Francisco that help so many people trying to exit homelessness,” said Del Seymour, co-chair of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board. “This funding will make a real difference to people seeking services and support in their journey out of homelessness.”

In comparison to last year’s competition, this represents a $770,000 increase in funding, due to a new PSH project that was funded, an increase in some unit type Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and the larger CoC Planning Grant. In a year where more projects had to compete nationally against other communities, this represents a significant increase.

Nationally, HUD awarded nearly $3.16 billion for over 7,000 local homeless housing and service programs including new projects and renewals across the United States.