A single-day sprint to count all of the homeless yielded 675, a 26-percent surge from last year's 535. Changes in the way that the count is managed -- namely, a bigger push to find "unsheltered" people -- make it hard to compare year-over-year statistics. Are there more homeless people? Are we counting more effectively? Both?
Or neither? As the economy sours, we wonder how many people are on the edge of "official" homelessness.
A point-in-time count may be the best measure of a fluid population, but it cannot include all of the people living out of cars. It also omits the couch-surfing population that cannot afford shelter but are relying on help from friends; they skirt federal guidelines for homelessness (the lack of "a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence"). The count doesn't include 130 people living in "permanent supportive housing," like substance-abuse programs.
What does this mean for Durham's 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, slated to wrap up in 2017?
The number of people on the streets doesn't reflect the quality of effort or our progress. Instead, leaders acknowledge that the increase, which outpaced a surge of homelessness in peer counties, requires fresh thought.
City Councilwoman Cora Cole-McFadden wants data that tracks homeless individuals as they move through the system.
We want it, too; that information will give us a better way to measure the problem.
Even in 2007, when our community launched the plan, there was tacit acknowledgement that "end homelessness" really meant "build support structures that can get people off the streets as fast as possible." Poverty isn't ending, nor is homelessness -- and even if every one of the 675 people counted were off the streets tomorrow, the shelters would have new clients on Tuesday.
The trajectory of homelessness is often a slow fall through those resources and an arduous slog to get back out of the streets, into temporary shelter and then permanent housing.
We should keep counting the total number of homeless Durhamites, but we also need to track the length of time that they are homeless, and cut those days down as far as we can.
