The Count

The purpose behind counting homeless census is to understand the amount of people living in the streets unsheltered or in abandoned buildings. With an accurate count, we can work to understand the causes that affect homelessness and find a solution to reduce the amount of homeless for the future years. The count can also raise public awareness to the community so we can support and help those who are suffering from homelessness.

There is a count conducted at least once every three years by a group of volunteers that are mainly from their own neighborhood and want a better understanding of homeless society. They are all trained by an organization called Continuum of Care (CoC) before they perform the count. The volunteer’s job is to find, identify, and record the homeless and make sure each person is counted once. The volunteers are instructed to count adults, children, and unaccompanied youths in streets, parks, alleys, transportation depots, abandoned buildings, etc.

As of 2005, study shows that New York City has the second highest homeless count in the United States with a total of 48,155 followed by an outstanding 91,000 homeless count in Los Angeles. The Ethnic breakdown of the homeless are as follow: “49% African-American, 35% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic, 2% Native American, and 1% Asian.” It is also more likely to find a male homeless adult on any given night than a female homeless adult by an outstanding 43%:17% of the homeless population.

http://www.hmis.info/documents/countingguide.pdf