As I sat down at the kitchen table, I caught a glimpse of a familiar grin out of the corner of my eye. It was a homeless friend, captured in a photo accompanying Jeri Rowe’s story about Wheelchair Man (real name, Marty), on the front page of today’s News & Record.
Marty is a homeless vet who lost his leg after being hit by a train while in “an alcoholic fog.” Now he panhandles from his wheelchair. He uses his disability check to stay in a hotel the first couple weeks of each month. When the money runs out, he sleeps in an abandoned house. No electricity. Empty 40s and the floor in the corner serve as his toilet. He’s done time for breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s house, and been arrested for stealing cheap wine and for having a crack pipe. There’s more, but long story short: Marty is among Greensboro’s chronically homeless. And like the rest of our chronically homeless friends, he dreams of something different:
“I live in an abandoned home. I have no phone, no electricity and I smell like stale water. If I could just put things together, vocational rehab, go to Goodwill and take classes, just so I can get started again. But I can’t get started.”
The “can’t get started” is a familiar refrain. I envision it as trying to climb out of a well without a rope. Not impossible, but you need some help.
Rowe points to a source of hope for Marty:
“… he’s homeless, caught in the vicious cycle Guilford County advocates want to break. It’s an admirable plan, financed by a nearly $1 million state grant. Unveiled last week, it intends to find permanent housing and offer support and treatment to keep folks like Anderson off the streets. And like many of Guilford County’s homeless — 1,200 at last count — Anderson needs help.”
By “advocates” and “plan,” I assume Rowe is referring to the Guilford County Task Force to End Homelessness and the newly announced Ten Year Plan. And I think that he is referring to two state grants, totaling around $1 million, that were recently awarded to Guilford Center. One is a pilot project for housing support teams and I think that the other grant is for housing people with mental illness. (I’m don’t know if it’s OK to name names yet, but when I found out some of the people who are going to be involved with the housing support teams, I got really excited, because they’re among the homeless advocates whom I most admire and respect for their caring, concern and compassion. 
)
The most interesting, and ironic, part of Rowe’s quote above is this: “And like many of Guilford County’s homeless — 1,200 at last count — Anderson needs help.” That 1,200 is an estimate. A snapshot. A minimum. And a moving target. Based on an annual one-day count of homeless people. Homeless counts are done using strict methodology, and one of the rules is that people in hotels aren’t considered homeless. So during the two weeks of the month that Marty sleeps in a hotel, he couldn’t be counted as homeless.
Homeless counts are done at the end of the month, most likely taking into account the fact that people on disability, like Marty, will have run out of money and be back on the street by then. (Or in an abandoned house, or similar circumstance.) But there are others who will be staying in a hotel on the night of the homeless count, because they’ve managed to scrape up the money to pay for a room for the night.
Some homeless people have regular jobs. Others work day labor. Some panhandle or have other ways of making money. Sometimes several homeless friends will pool their money and get a hotel room together so they can shower and get warm or cool, depending on the season. They may have been on the street the night before, and they may well be back on the street the night after, but if they’re in a hotel on the night of the count, then they’re not “homeless.” (Except that… yes, they really are. They just don’t get to be counted.)
Sometimes, a church or a friend or family member will pay to house a homeless person (or family) in a hotel temporarily, until a space opens in a shelter, a rehab facility, or a permanent housing program. Homeless count rules say these folks can’t be counted either. Too often, I hear of homeless people having to leave hotels for the street because funds ran out before space opened up elsewhere. (But still, while they’re in the hotel, they’re not technically “homeless.”)
And then there are “double-ups.” A number of our homeless friends find occasional respite on someone’s floor or couch. Maybe a friend, a relative, even a boss or co-worker, sometimes. But if a homeless person happens to be sleeping on someone’s floor on the night of the homeless count, then they’re not considered to be homeless, and they don’t get counted.
Or if a homeless family is going from house to house, wearing out their welcome with every friend and relative they know because they ran out of money for hotel rooms and the family shelters are full and their spot on the waiting list hasn’t opened up (it can be 6-8 weeks), then that family isn’t considered homeless for the count, either. (Last fall, one of Greensboro’s family shelters had 40 families on the waiting list. I haven’t heard a recent number, but I’m guessing it hasn’t changed substantially.)
Not to mention the absolute impossibility of finding all the people who actually are homeless on the day of the annual count — on the street, in the woods, in cars, in abandoned houses and buildings, and myriad other places — and don’t want to be found by the counters. Why not? Back to Marty:
Anderson doesn’t want to disclose where he lives. He’s afraid he’ll get booted out by police and sent to jail — again.
Homeless counts are an estimate at best, not an exact science. Counters work diligently to get a good, unduplicated one-day snapshot of homelessness in their communities. But I always tell people that whatever the count comes out to be, that it just means that’s the minimum number of homeless people in the community, because those are the ones that counters were able to find.
There are probably some ways to get more accurate numbers, if communities are willing to invest the time and resources. For instance, in L.A., officers do a weekly homeless count and produce a “heat map” of the downtown homeless population. Unique approach. One of many that involve frequent counts. If you count in a consistent, efficient and comprehensive manner, then the more often that you count, the more accurate you can be in estimating the number of homeless folks in your community.
But only 1,200 homeless people in Guilford County? Don’t count on it.
Want to know more? For a little light reading (78 pages worth…) check out HUD’s “Guide to Counting Unsheltered Homeless People,” which details the challenges involved in (and good reasons for) counting our homeless friends on the street.
