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New Publication from the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH)
Estimating the Need: Projecting from Point-in-Time to Annual Estimates of the Number of Homeless People in a Community and Using this Information to Plan for Permanent Supportive Housing
Written by Martha R. Burt and Carol Wilkins; March 2005; 30 pages. Download for free here.
This guide is meant to help communities project annual estimates of homelessness:
- Calculate an expected number of homeless people over a year’s time when you only have data from a point-in-time (PIT) count;
- use both PIT information and projections to annual levels of homelessness to figure out how many chronically homeless people you are likely to have, now and in the future; and
- Plan and develop appropriate levels of permanent supportive housing to
- End long-term homelessness for people who currently are chronically homeless,
- End homelessness for people with special needs who are currently homeless and at risk of long-term homelessness, and
- Prevent homelessness for people with special needs who are at high risk of homelessness if their housing and support needs are not met.
HUD's Guide To Counting Unsheltered Homeless People
October 2004; 78 pages. Download for free here.
Many communities have long understood the need to count, describe, and understand the homeless people who do not use shelters and are typically found on the streets, in abandoned buildings or in other places not meant for human habitation. Unsheltered homeless people are an important subpopulation of homeless persons and their characteristics and needs must be accommodated within any strategy to reduce homelessness and help eliminate chronic homelessness. Collecting good baseline data about this subpopulation is essential to understanding the causes of homelessness and to designing effective responses, and can be used as a basis for comparison in future years.
This guide describes several methods for identifying, counting, and learning something about homeless people who are unlikely to be found in shelters or in other residential programs within a local homeless assistance network. Information about these approaches was gathered from communities throughout the country; examples of their methods are provided throughout the guide.
Martha Burt's Guide to Counting Sheltered Homeless
Practical Methods for Counting the Homeless: A Manual for State and Local Jurisdictions (2nd Edition)
Written by Martha R. Burt; June 1996; Urban Institute Press; 144 pages. Available for sale here.
This manual is useful for all who need to understand, use, or produce estimates of the numbers and types of homeless people within their areas of responsibility. Among those who will find this manual useful are housing and welfare officials, mental health professionals, nonprofit organizations, service coordinators for the homeless, state and local legislators, and state and local service planners. It describes methods for learning about the homeless population and details the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods. Topics discussed include defining the homeless, choosing data for different uses, using caution with data sources, getting unduplicated data, using volunteers, and gaining interagency cooperation.
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