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Sonoma County up 6 percent from 2017

Sonoma County CoC released its 2018 PIT Count Report showing an overall 6 percent increase from 2,835 to 2,996 persons, the highest total since the 2015 estimate of 3,107.  A breakdown of the count revealed rises in both sheltered (8%) and unsheltered (4%) totals with 64% (1,929) unsheltered and 36% (1,067) sheltered.  A total of 207 persons self-identified as veterans.  Approximately one-quarter (24%) of the unsheltered person were found living in cars, trailers and RVs.  The vast majority of persons homeless identified as Caucasian (white) with both African-American and Native Americans each accounting for 7% to 8% of the homeless total.  Twenty-eight (28%) percent self-identified as Hispanic, which is approximately the same proportion of Hispanic persons in Sonoma County.

The 2018 PIT count also included questions about impacts on housing caused by the wildfires during late 2017.  The PIT count itself was delayed by a month due to the fires.  The separate telephone survey of over 1,100 households provided an estimate of over 21,000 individuals precariously housed, with 39% of these persons impacted by the fires. Sonoma County has a population of approximately 500,000 and over 210,000 households.  The report  showed a very large jump from 23% to 34% in the number of people self-reporting a history of domestic violence and abuse.
 

Sonoma County declares State of Homeless Emergency in hopes of more $$$

Sonoma Press Democrat, July 10th
 "Sonoma County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted the state of emergency, a necessary step to allow the county to compete for up to $12 million in one-time funding under the state’s new Homeless Emergency Aid Program.  The criteria for eligibility is not yet clear, but grants obtained through the program could be used for a variety of purposes, including rapid rehousing services, emergency housing vouchers, shelter construction and use of armories for temporary shelter." CLICK HERE to read further.

 

Norfolk/SE VA up 16 percent from 2017

The Southeast Virginia Homeless Coalition (SVHC), an area that includes Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Southampton, Isle of Wight, and Franklin counties, recently released its 2018 PIT data showing a 16% increase over 2017 with the number of persons estimated to be homelessness on a single day rising from 703 in 2017 to 812 in 2018. 

The vast majority of the increase came from a 98 person increase in shelter beds stemming from a displacement of 38 people from a PSH project into temporary emergency shelter beds and the opening of a new 34 bed facility operated by the Rescue Mission.  The unsheltered count did increase from 69 to 80 persons, 53 of whom are located in the City of Norfolk.  The number of homeless veterans reported a slight drop from 86 to 80. 

 

Editorial: Improving ASR PIT reports

Applied Services Research (ASR) from Watsonville, CA near Santa Cruz is contracted with many CA Bay Area Continuums as well as Seattle/King County to complete about a dozen PIT reports annually. While their finished product looks nice and contains lots of information, it suffers from trying to include too much information without a focus on detailed analysis on the more critical homeless service characteristics. The NHIP recommends that ASR and its contracted COCs as well as all CoCs improve their reports in the following ways:

1)  Key demographic characteristics especially race/ethnicity need to be presented separately for sheltered and unsheltered population. Numbers in tables should be included not difficult hard to read graphs showing percentages.  Race/ethnicity is perhaps the most explanatory variables for homelessness with rates among Asian and Blacks 5 to 50 times different than other race/ethnic groups.

2)  Even though HUD does not require it, race/ethnicity needs to be broken down further into smaller, less heterogeneous categories than "Latino/Hispanic" and "Asian."  Communities  need to move past their aggregate race categories especially among blacks (American vs. Caribbean vs. African born) and whites (Greek, Italian, Scot-Irish, German, Russian, Jewish, etc) and Asians (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese) and Pacific Islander (Native Hawaiian, Micronesian, Samoan).

3)  In general, there are too many difficult to read graphs without corresponding numbers in tables.  At a minimum, the numbers should be provided in an appendix for the reader.

4)  There is a lack of highlighting of key points by providing executive summaries or bulletin points the most significant changes in the data from previous years. This is a problem of most PIT reports around the country that are disseminated as if they lack a predecessor and are just another report to file.

5)  The estimated number of TAY persons reported in ASR PIT counts continues to be much higher than other Continuums.  The most recent Sonoma report reported nearly a quarter (23%) of their unsheltered homeless (445/1929) as TAY.  HUD needs to review the ASR methodology ASAP since the national average is close to 10%. If they are doing a better job, than this methodology needs to be adopted by others.  If the methodology is overproducing overestimates of actual homeless TAY, then corrections needs to be made.

6)  The report does not underscore the fact that responses to questions concerning disabilities are client self-report and contain large amounts of known errors due to the problems with asking question in a one-time survey.  In general, most PIT reports do not emphasize that the counts are merely estimates.  

In general, too many pages of these PIT reports are filled with summaries of data from questions (e.g. why did you become homeless? What is your annual income?) that are not very helpful since they are self-reported, or need only be asked once every few years (like employment status), or contained in numerical tables in a summary appendix.  

The most recent report from Norfolk/Southeastern VA has begun to identify people counted in subsequent years to determine movement and stagnation.  In their 2018 report, they identified about 10% of the population as those counted in previous years.  The State of Hawaii has previously captured up to 80% by directing asking and recording names - without problem - during their PIT counts. Increase attempts in tracking people from year to year - especially sheltered persons who can easily be identified through HMIS should be included.

Communities should not wait for new HUD mandates to generate better PIT counts.  The NHIP welcomes any communities that would like advice on how to improve their PIT counting and report analysis at no charge. Please feel free to email  nhipdata@gmail.com..
 

NYC seeing large increase in Single Adults

The New York City (CoC) reported that the total number of individuals living in its DHS-funded housing facilities defined as homeless experienced a 9 percent increase in its census of single adults.  The census for June 2018 is reported as 15,315 persons, compared to 13,968 compared to June 2017.  Families served by DHS homeless services fell only slightly from 12,267 (representing about 38,000 adults and children) in June 2018 compared to 12,409 in June 2017.  DHS is the primary provider of emergency housing services for NYC.  The city has a right to housing statute which requires it to house persons in need.


Have a Nice Day -
The NHIP

Copyright © 2018
National Homeless Information Project


Our mailing address is:
Traverse City, MI 49684
Michael Ullman, Ph.D., NHIP Coordinator
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