[V]ermont’s annual homeless population count, required by the federal government, is not seen as the best method for collecting homeless population numbers, advocates say.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development holds a yearly census through state agencies across the country to measure the national homeless population on a particular night, usually in January, said Rhonda Siciliano, public affairs specialist at the Boston regional office of HUD.
In the results of the most recent Point-In-Time Homelessness Count conducted Jan. 27, Vermont as a whole saw a small decrease of 2.3 percent in its homeless population since 2014. Chittenden County alone saw a decrease of 11.5 percent, but the rest of the state increased by 2.4 percent, according to the June 4 report.
There were 1,523 homeless Vermonters counted Jan. 27, according to the report. The statewide count and its findings were supported by the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness and the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, according to the report.
Paul Dettman, executive director of the Burlington Housing Authority, said he doesn’t trust any of the data from the Point-In-Time count and asks that people “take the data with a grain of salt.”
Dettman said the method of data collection for the count in the state, while it has improved, is “still very flawed.” Conducting a count on one night in January has the potential to be one of many tools, but it seems to be the “sole indicator” in Vermont for measuring the homeless population, he said.
Dettman said he would rather use a coordinated entry system, which would centralize the services for homeless people and make it easier for information on the homeless population to be gathered over the course of a year. All homeless assistance organizations would be involved in a coordinated entry system, making it easier to document all homeless people who seek services, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development Coordinated Entry Policy Brief.
“It’s very hard to count homeless folks,” Dettman said. “Some folks are very visible — are known to people. There’s a lot of folks we don’t know.”
Burlington Housing Authority is a “key resource” in housing homeless people, he said.
“When people in the past have said there’ve been dramatic increases in homelessness, I didn’t think we could necessarily substantiate that and similarly I don’t know that we could really substantiate a dramatic drop in the last year,” Dettman said.
Margaret Bozik, co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, said that the Point-In-Time count is “probably not” accurate each year in counting every single homeless person.
“That’s a goal that I don’t think we could probably ever reach, but in terms of having a data point consistent year after year, it’s a good measure,” Bozik said.
“It’s not a perfect science, and we realize that, but it’s the best method that we have to see where things stand with the homeless population,” Siciliano said.
Bozik said that the type of people who aren’t captured by the count are the “unstably housed.” These are people who find temporary housing with a friend or double up with family and are still people that the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness and the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance need to worry about, Bozik said.
“We do need to make decisions about who to help first and if you don’t have a roof over your head right now, you may need help more immediately than if you do have a roof that is temporary in nature,” Bozik said.
In the future, Bozik said she doesn’t see their goal of making homelessness “rare and brief” happening without increasing the number of housing units available, due to the 1 percent rental vacancy rate.
“You can’t house the homeless if you don’t have housing,” she said.