Top federal officials rallied more than 200 volunteers on the evening of Jan. 25 in the annual effort to count homeless people living on the streets of Washington D.C.
Before heading out from the National City Christian Church for the region’s twelfth annual count, V. Scott Gould, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a central figure in the VA’s fight against homelessness among America’s veterans, greeted the assembled crowd.
“If you don’t get it, this is a group effort,” he said, stressing the importance of the night’s mission. The data gleaned from the annual count informs national and local policies and funding for homeless services, he said.
Estelle Richman, Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) used her remarks to highlight the plight of all homeless Americans.
“No one should ever be homeless,” she said. “Everyone deserves a place to live.”
Both deputy secretaries marked recent progress in addressing homelessness. They said strategies implemented in recent years to move chronically homeless people into supportive housing programs, appear to be working. Homelessness among veterans dropped more than 12 percent between 2010 and 2011 according to state data compiled into the nation’s most recent homeless count, they said. But they were also quick to point out that more must be done to prevent and end homelessness.
Then, donning hats and gloves, the officials and the volunteers headed out. Gould and Richman would spend the next several hours in the Eastern Market area, walking down dark alleys, shining flashlights behind dumpsters, and peeking under
bushes. meticulously combing so as not to miss any person who might be sleeping in the elements.
The annual local count is just a small part of a larger effort to take a snapshot of the nation’s “homeless picture”. In addition to physically walking the streets to count those who are unsheltered, HUD regulations also call for local jurisdictions to collect data on people using services such as soup kitchens and emergency shelters.
The annual effort, known as a point-in-time (PIT) count, would not end on the night of Jan. 25. On the following morning, additional volunteers visited soup kitchens and drop-in centers to try and gather more information. Emergency shelters were also asked to supply data on their visitors. Such PIT counts are conducted in this so-called blitz fashion to limit duplication of records, which are inevitable according to HUD officials but far less likely if the count is performed quickly than they would be if the count were to take place over the course of days or weeks. In spite of the volunteers’ best efforts, organizers agree that the count fails to capture the entire homeless population, even on a given day. Some people do not want to be found.
The data is compiled and analyzed by the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (TCP), the nonprofit corporation that coordinates the District’s homeless services. A final report on this year’s count is expected in the spring. The collected information will then be compiled with the data from jurisdictions across the country by HUD for a national snapshot of homelessness in 2012.
The process is lengthy, but while the numbers are crunched, Gould said he plans to stay busy developing a comprehensive strategy to register all veterans prior to their discharge from the military and to identify proven risk factors which may lead to homelessness. He said he hopes his plan will allow the VA to take a more proactive approach to combating homelessness among veterans.
Deputy Secretary Richman, echoing the tone of President Obama’s State of the Union Address from the night before the PIT count, said she sees the challenge of ending homelessness as an opportunity for the nation as a whole.
“We can take a big problem and solve it,” she said. “If we stick together, we can solve any problem.”
