Are there 570,000 Homeless or 1.2 Million? Depends Who You Ask

On a recent evening, Denis McDonough, President Obama’s chief of staff, walked in the dark calling out, “Male, over 25; female, 18 to 24.”
Homeless people rarely have the privilege of having an audience with the president’s right-hand man — much less, one on their own turf. But that’s exactly what happened on a recent evening when McDonough and a crew consisting of Secret Service agents, White House staffers and San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee took part in the point-in-time count of homeless people living across America. (Within 90 minutes, the team counted 144 people in eight square blocks around San Francisco’s city hall.) The participation of a high-ranking Cabinet official drew attention to this little-known tool that provides essential direction for governments and service providers. It also brings focus to a population that’s often hidden out of sight, forgotten on vacant doorsteps, under freeway overpasses and in emergency shelters.
“What I see here, what we just walked through, this is a problem. But this is the same sort of challenge we face all over the country,” McDonough says. “The numbers tell the story. And that’s why this count is so important.”
WHAT ARE POINT-IN-TIME SURVEYS?
Here’s the formula: Sometime during the last 10 days of January (with a few exceptions), thousands of volunteers fan out across towns and cities across the U.S. to take a census of unsheltered street people. Equipped with clipboards and flashlights, they’re often assigned a small geographic area to avoid duplicates. The counts began in 1983 in 60 municipalities, as an increasingly visible population became homeless due to poverty, drug use and the closure of state-run mental institutions. Standardized methods for the counts were firmed up in 2005 and have since been refined. Along with figures from homeless shelters and transitional housing, numbers from the point-in-time count are submitted to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). From there, the data gives a local and national snapshot of the homeless population that guides service providers, Congress, HUD and other agencies.
HOW OFTEN ARE THEY CONDUCTED?
HUD requires shelters to submit their data every year, but point-in-time surveys only happen biennially, usually in the odd-numbered years. Many large cities, however, choose to complete the census annually to keep abreast of the latest trends. “When we get an accurate count, the numbers tell us what to do,” Mayor Lee tells the San Francisco Chronicle. “Data drives action. That’s what this night is all about.”
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IS THERE MORE TO THE SURVEYS THAN JUST COUNTING PEOPLE ON THE STREETS?
Since the federal government introduced its long-term plan to end chronic and veteran homelessness by 2015, as well as youth and family homelessness by 2020, HUD has requested detailed data on those subpopulations. Some surveys require nothing more than approximate age and gender, but others, like Los Angeles’s survey, consists of a seven-page questionnaire asking things like, “Where have you been spending most of your nights?” “Do you have ongoing health problems or medical conditions?” and “How many times have you been housed and homeless?”
In Connecticut, for the first time, volunteers will ask the homeless about their specific housing, medical and employment needs to add to a registry. “In the past, each program kept its own waitlist for housing and other important services…Under that old system, providers and public officials had no way to gain a global view of the total needs to end homelessness in their community,” Lisa Tepper Bates, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, writes in an op-ed. A “community-wide by-name registry,” she adds, allows nonprofits “to target the right kind of assistance to the right person.”
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HOW DO VOLUNTEERS FIND THE HOMELESS?
It’s not easy. Organizers target known homeless encampments, but there’s always the chance of missing some. Because of its huge area, Los Angeles has been one of the leaders in improving its methodology. To supplement a count that takes place over multiple nights — from the posh neighborhoods along the ocean (some of which had their first count this year) to deep into the San Gabriel Valley — the city also conducts a random telephone survey of the “hidden homeless,” which added an additional 18,000 to the 36,000 people already counted on the street or in shelters.
Even if volunteers are able to locate people they suspect to be homeless, answers are not always forthcoming. (“None of your goddamn business” is how someone rebuffed two women who work for the Department of Veteran Affairs in D.C. when they asked him.) Many cities equip volunteers with gift bags and resource lists, small incentives that may prod someone to answer a few questions.
WHAT DO OFFICIALS EXPECT FROM THIS YEAR’S RESULTS?
A year ago, HUD reported that 578,434 people were homeless on a given night, a 2 percent decline from 2013. Exact figures from last month’s count won’t be known until municipalities release them later this year, but so far, experts aren’t optimistic about another decrease. (Already-released figures in Seattle show an alarming 21 percent jump from last year.) Why? Gentrification is driving up rent and decreasing the number of vacant apartments up and down the West Coast, says Katy Miller, regional coordinator for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Add to that lingering poverty and unemployment from the recession, a dearth of affordable housing and limited mental health care infrastructure, and it’s suddenly clear why so many are losing their homes.
But it’s not all bad news. Expect some bright spots in the declining numbers of homeless veterans, which has already dropped one-third from 2010 to 2014, thanks in part to First Lady Michelle Obama. Mayors across the country responded to her call to end veteran homelessness this year — a goal that’s well within reach, as New Orleans has demonstrated. The chronically homeless population should also decrease as well, continuing the 21 percent decline from 2010 to 2014. As Salt Lake City has shown, putting the homeless into housing can bring these numbers close to zero. Look for the common-sense solution of “Housing First” to once again prove its effectiveness when totals debut.
HOW ACCURATE ARE THE FINDINGS?
Many in the field believe the counts far underestimate the actual number of people experiencing homelessness. For one, the count occurs during the bitter freeze of late January, when many homeless aren’t living on the street. The calendar assumption seems to be that the homeless will be more likely to enter the shelter when it’s cold outside and thus be counted, but they could also take refuge in a vehicle or seek protection in a church basement. The head counts are “hit or miss,” says Paul Boden, director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a homeless rights group. “Those whom they could see, they counted,” he writes in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Point-in-time counts are a minimum number, always. They undercount hidden homeless populations because homeless persons are doubling up with the housed or cannot be identified by sight as homeless.” A quick look at other studies support Boden’s claim, including data released by the U.S. Department of Education, which reports that the number of homeless students has nearly doubled since the 2006-07 school year, to 1.2 million.
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WHICH GROUPS ARE OFTEN MOST EXCLUDED FROM THE CENSUS?
Point-in-time surveys do provide a snapshot taken at roughly the same time, a HUD official notes, which can “benchmark progress” with some confidence every two years — assuming that the face of homelessness is not changing. Some advocates fear that the largest new population of homeless — families who’ve lost their homes in the recession and are bouncing between couches, cheap motels and other temporary residences— are not being identified since they don’t “look homeless” to survey volunteers.
In addition to families, youth are most often among the undercounted, Boden says. Unaccompanied homeless youth are referred to as an “invisible population” because they’re particularly difficult to count. Studies attempting to estimate the total range from 22,700 to 1.7 million, a huge disparity. To improve count accuracy, HUD has partnered with a number of other agencies for a program called “Youth Count!” Since 2013, these groups have tried to attract youth homeless into shelters for the one-night counts with free meals and activities. They also approach homeless youth earlier in the day, when they’re likely easier to find at hotspots for young people like malls or recreation centers, LGBT-focused agencies and schools.
Unfortunately, while this system counts those down-and-out on the streets, it does little to track those who are grappling with housing insecurity — the very people which may be counted among this country’s homeless during the next point-in-time survey.
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How the Garden State Plans to Grow Energy Infrastructure

Following the costly devastation of Superstorm Sandy, the eastern seaboard has spent the last two years picking up the pieces and developing new strategies for disaster preparedness.
The damage serves as a reminder of what natural disaster can do, and the United Nations’s warning that climate change could cost trillions is forcing some states to rethink their plan for infrastructure and energy.
New Jersey joins Connecticut and New York in creating a green bank “to fund projects that will help prevent a reoccurrence of the energy disruptions and build energy resilience.” Both Connecticut (which became the first state to create such a bank in 2011) and New York fund microgrid projects, but New Jersey’s green bank will focus strictly on energy resilience for infrastructure — including water and wastewater plants, hospitals, transit systems and schools, according to Governing.
In New York and New Jersey, 75 percent of power generation is located in flood plains, which have a 1 percent chance of flooding each year, according to United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). An energy resilience bank will support new efforts to create eco-friendly, clean sources of energy that will prove to be more reliable over time. The bank plans to dole out loans and grants to fund projects such as smart grid technology, microgrids and distributed generation, which produce electricity through a variety of smaller energy sources such as solar panels.
The state plans to use $200 million from its Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery allocation from HUD, according to Greg Reinart, director of communications for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. To sustain the bank, the state hopes to attract private-sector financing to invest in new energy technologies and renewable energy.
MORE: Here’s What Happens When Communities Demand Green Energy

If Another Superstorm Hits, This Dirt Barricade Will Protect NYC

Everyone — but especially New Yorkers — remember Superstorm Sandy’s seemingly endless destruction back in 2012. Costing the region billions of dollars, it was an example of what nature could do to our infrastructure and our society.
Preventing damage like what occurred is crucial — and a big part of what needs to be done to prepare for the future. That’s what the winning project of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rebuild by Design contest aims to do. And there’s no better way to do it than to also make some beautiful public space in the process.
The Bridging Berm is a new project on Manhattan’s lower east side. While there’s no timeline for completion, once it is finished, it will shelter 150,000 residents and a power sub-station from the effects of storms and rising sea levels.
The 2.19 miles along the East River that the Bridging Berm will occupy is currently a public park, though it has few entrances and is very isolated from the city. The Bridging Berm will change that — improving both access and the public space itself. Even more importantly, it will raise the riverbank to nine feet above its current level. Had this been around during Sandy, there still would have been four feet to spare.
Jeremy Barbour of Tacklebox Architecture tells Next City that “the strength of the proposal is in the way they have addressed both the vertical and the horizontal through a series of programmed berms and bridges that mediate the boundary between the waterfront and the edge of the city — defining a place for community gathering and a way to inhabit the in-between.”
And a defining place it will be, with bike paths along the water, boating and fishing areas, as well as athletic fields. Clearly, there will something for everybody.
This multipurpose space is just one of three components to the larger “BIG U” proposal in the Rebuild By Design contest; roll-down storm gates on the FDR bridge as well as a berm-and-educational facility in lower Manhattan are also part of the plan.
The Bridging Berm could have the largest impact, though. With such a dense population and the power station in the area, not to mention the improved public space, it is an exceptional urban planning vision.
DON’T MISS: 8 Inspiring Urban Renewal Projects

How HUD is Helping Four Cities Rethink Housing Projects

In our opinion, the best prize is always cold, hard cash.
And this year, that’s exactly what four cities are receiving from the federal government after competing for funding to support low-income communities. This year’s winners are using the money to rethink the potential of public housing.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a total of $119.7 million (about $30 million each) to Norwalk, Connecticut; Columbus, Ohio; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh for its annual Choice Neighborhood Initiative.
These four recipients bested 40 other cities that applied for the urban housing program. Each will combine the grant money with private funding to transform aging public housing and depressed neighborhoods into mixed-income, mixed-use communities, Next City reports.
“By working together, with local and state partners we will show why neighborhoods should always be defined by their potential — not their problems,” said HUD secretary Shaun Donovan. “Together, we will work to ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code and expand opportunity for all.”
Donovan, who led President Barack Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Task Force, has made sustainable building a priority at HUD in the wake of recent natural disasters. The agency has collaborated with FEMA in redesigning recovery projects, which extends to Norwalk’s project: rebuilding a blighted public housing development devastated by Sandy.
New units will be built six-and-a-half feet above the floodplain and will be protected by FEMA-funded storm-proofing infrastructures. The new development will also include community gardens, fitness trails and parks with playgrounds and sports fields.
In Pittsburgh, officials will use the grant to redevelop two of the city’s low-income neighborhoods. Plans include a one-to-one replacement of 155 public housing units and development of the area surrounding the new, upscale Ace Hotel.

“It will be the most significant investment in low- and moderate-income communities in the East End in 75 years,” Councilman Ricky Burgess, who represents the neighborhoods, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

HUD began the initiative under President Obama’s order in 2011, awarding Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and New Orleans a total of $122.27 million in grants. Submission for applications for next year’s funding is slated to begin this fall.

MORE: What Cities Can Learn From San Francisco’s Newest Public Housing Project

 

A National Effort to Boost Local Resources

As smaller cities across the country grapple with poverty, unemployment, failing schools and other indicators economic distress, little time is devoted to ensuring they’re receiving the best tools and resources for better solutions.
While cities like New York and San Francisco benefit from the bright minds of Silicon Valley and other social startups, smaller communities are in need of similar solutions and ideas to restore economic recovery and growth. That’s why President Barack Obama launched the National Resource Network, a pilot program developed to be a consulting agency for policy, technical, and financial support for local governments.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) injected $10 million into the program, forming a network of experts with the New York University and the International City/County Management Association as well as Enterprise Community Partners, Public Financial Management Inc. and HR&A Advisors.
MORE: Small Spaces, Big Ideas: 7 Tiny Homes With the Power to Transform How We Live
The goal is to spend a three-year period listening to local governments for the type of guidance and assistance they need. From there, teams will be formed to create customized strategies. Local officials will also have access to a library of resources on government reform and community development, as well as a “311 for Cities.”
What’s that, you’re probably asking? The help line will serve as an online resource for government officials to log in for help with anything from public budgeting to crime prevention. After sending an inquiry, the network will review the problem and within three days, send a response with referrals and resources. The online site is available for about 50 communities and aims to expand to hundreds more over the course of the next three years.
While larger cities continue to innovate new policies and strategies to spur more community development, economic growth, and public and private partnerships, it’s important to keep in mind the thousands of smaller cities without the same resources — but that need of the same solutions. With a one-stop shop like the National Resource Network, help is on the horizon.
 

This Innovative Program Found Housing for 200 Homeless Veterans in Just 100 Days

For far too many veterans, the end of their military service doesn’t involve a happy homecoming when they arrive back on American soil.
According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, 62,619 veterans were counted as homeless in 2012. Despite this being a drastic decline of 17.2 percent since 2009, veteran homelessness is still a huge problem in this country. In response, cities across the country — as part of Community Solutions100,000 Homes campaign — are tackling the issue of veteran homelessness, vowing to reach the Obama Administration’s goal of ending it by December 2015.
And it seems to be working: Phoenix has already declared victory in their war against veteran homelessness. Utah claims to be on track to end homelessness altogether by 2015. Tennessee was recently profiled by 60 Minutes for the state’s efforts. And now officials in the nation’s capitol are doing their part. Last week, representatives from Veterans NOW, a coalition of district and national organizations and agencies, announced that in just 100 days — between August 9 and November 30 — they were able to place 207 homeless veterans, 96 of whom were considered chronically homeless, in houses.
MORE: Yes It’s True. Subsidizing Housing for the Homeless Can Save Them — And Taxpayers’ Money
In 2013, a one-night census of Washington, D.C.’s homeless population found that 499 veterans were living on the streets — a 29 percent decline since 2009. However, twice as many veterans were considered “at risk” of homelessness and in need of emergency housing services. Bolstered by that statistic, national organizations like The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Human Services teamed up with local groups such as the DC Housing Authority, Miriam’s Kitchen and Pathways to Housing DC to connect homeless veterans with subsidized housing.
According to DCist (a local blog that covers all things Washington, D.C.), these veterans are assessed through a universal service prioritization decision assistance tool, which asks about their history of homelessness, risk factors, socialization and medical needs. Each person is then scored to see if he or she is considered “vulnerable,” in which case permanent supportive housing or rapid re-housing would be recommended. The veterans are housed through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program — $6.5 million in funding has provided for the D.C. region — Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH), HUD Permanent Supportive Housing and the D.C. DHS Permanent Supportive Housing program. The apartments themselves are located by officials from the D.C. Housing Authority directly reaching out landlords who partner with the organization.
MORE: Phoenix Just Became the First City to End Chronic Veteran Homelessness. Here’s How
The success of Veterans NOW’s first 100-day program has convinced everyone involved to give it a second go-around. Currently, the organization is in the midst of another 100-day push, where they hope to house 190 homeless veterans, including 56 who are chronically homeless, by March 31. And it looks like they’ll meet their goal. So far, 161 veterans have been placed in homes, including 84 who were considered chronically homeless. In total, communities participating in the 100,000 Homes Campaign have placed almost 89,000 homeless individuals in homes. And that number is growing every day.
While it is too soon to tell if we’ll reach President Barack Obama’s goal of eradicating veteran homelessness by the end of 2015, it looks like we’re getting a whole lot closer.
AND: This Hero Isn’t Just Alleviating Homelessness; He’s Preventing It