2017 Report on homelessness : Georgia's 10,000

Georgia's 10,000
2017 Report on Homelesssness
March 2018

Georgia's 10,000
2017 Report on Homelessness
Georgia's Homeless Population
In the last ten days of January 2017, communities nationwide conducted a count of individuals and families who were homeless, as required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The resulting homeless census, referred to as a "Point in Time Count," provides an indication of the size and characteristics of the nation's homeless population.
Georgia's Continua of Care Athens-Clarke County Augusta-Richmond County City of Atlanta Columbus-Muscogee County DeKalb County Fulton County Georgia Balance of State (152 counties, administered by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs) Marietta-Cobb County Savannah-Chatham County

In Georgia, all nine of the state's homeless program regions, called Continua of Care, conducted a count of individuals and families who are homeless in their respective jurisdictions on various nights in the last ten days of January. Georgia's homeless population isn't static; some of the people who were homeless on the January count date will find housing. Other people, who had housing on the count night, will later become homeless.
During the Point in Time Count in January 2017, at least 10,373 people were literally homeless in Georgia a 25% decrease from 2015.

Georgia's Literally Homeless Population: Single Night (Point in Time Count)

Housing Status Unsheltered

Number of Individuals per Year

2013

2015

8,450

5,803

2017 3,692

Emergency Shelter or Transitional Housing

8,497

7,987

6,681

Total Change from previous count (%)

16,947 -15%

13,790 -19%

10,373 -25%

1

25000 20000 15000 10000

2011-2017 Point in Time Homeless Count Trend

19876

16947

13790

10373

5000

0 2011

2013

2015

2017

Homelessness in Georgia
In accordance with HUD guidelines, for the 2017 Count, Continua of Care used the following categories to define homelessness:
Literally Homeless o Sheltered Homeless lives in emergency shelter, transitional housing for homeless persons, or a hotel or motel with the stay being paid for by an organization o Unsheltered Homeless lives in a car, park, abandoned building, encampment, dilapidated building, on the sidewalk, or similar location
Imminently Homeless is facing loss of housing within two weeks, has no subsequent residence identified, and lacks the resources or support networks needed to obtain other permanent housing
Other Homeless is in jail, a hospital, or a detox program, but would otherwise have been homeless1

1 Literally homeless, imminently homeless and, other homeless categories based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition of homelessness in 2012.
2

Sheltered and Unsheltered Homeless Counts 2011 through 2017

12000 10000

11384

8000 6000 4000 2000

8450

5803

3692

0 2011

2013

2015

2017

Sheltered

Unsheltered

2013 marked the first year in which just under half of the homeless individuals and families were unsheltered; the remainder were in emergency or transitional housing. In 2017 the number of people who were unsheltered homeless continued to decline with just 36% of the state's overall homeless population being unsheltered.
There are several homeless subpopulations that HUD is tasking CoCs with prioritizing, two of which are veterans and chronically homeless. Seven percent (7%) of the homeless population in Georgia on the night of the count were veterans. Ten percent (10%) of the homeless population was experiencing chronic homelessness on the night of the count. Chronic homelessness is defined as someone experiencing continuous homelessness for at least one year or at least 4 times in the past 3 years with their total time in shelters or on the street adding up to over 1 year and who has a disabling condition.
In addition to people who are literally homeless, other people are living in motels, hotels, or are doubled up with friends or family. They may move frequently among temporary living arrangements. For some public programs, these living conditions also are categorized as homelessness.
The unifying condition for virtually all of Georgia's homeless population is poverty. Many people who are homeless also experience some type of personal vulnerability that places them at risk, such as:
Family violence Physical disability or chronic medical problems Mental illness Substance abuse Developmental disability or brain injury Criminal background

3

Appendix A: The Homeless Count Requirement and Methodology
Congressionally Mandated Data Collection Homeless Counts and HMIS
In order to better respond to homelessness in America, Congress has incorporated data collection requirements into the McKinney-Vento Act's programs for the homeless. The hope is that through data collection, progress toward eliminating homelessness can be tracked and programs can be tailored to better meet the need. Through amendments to the McKinney Vento Act and by HUD regulation, the nation's homeless service providers must:
1) adopt a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). HMIS is a person-level data collection system on people who access homeless services.1
2) conduct a regular homeless census. Point-in-time homeless counts must be conducted during the last ten days of January in odd years (January 2011, 2013, and so on).
A homeless census consists of counting both sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons.
A count of sheltered homeless people is comprised of those who occupy emergency shelters, transitional housing, recovery programs that serve homeless and nonhomeless clients, and motels if motel vouchers are provided by a service agency. The goal for the sheltered count is for the data to ultimately come from HMIS.
A count of unsheltered homeless people is comprised of those who reside in places not meant for human habitation, such as on the streets, in vehicles, parks, sidewalks, abandoned buildings, and makeshift shelters such as tents.
As a result of data requirements placed on the Continua of Care, HUD is now able to issue an annual assessment of homelessness to Congress. In the most recent assessment, the 2013 Annual Assessment Report to Congress2, HUD estimated that 610,042 people across the country were on the streets, in emergency shelters, or in transitional housing programs on a single night in January of that year.
Georgia's Homeless Counts
In response to the mandates described above, each of Georgia's seven Continua of Care is engaged in an effort to count their jurisdiction's sheltered an unsheltered homeless population. Although each Continuum has an independent responsibility to meet McKinney-Vento data collection requirements, the seven Continua have been working cooperatively with a single HMIS provider (Pathways Community Network) and share data related to their counts.
Sheltered Homeless Counts
The census of homeless persons and families in shelter is typically done annually, in conjunction with a housing inventory. The housing inventory is an opportunity for each Continuum of Care to track the available housing resources for homeless persons. The goal of each inventory is to account for all housing resources for people that are homeless (emergency shelter, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing), not just those that are funded by the state or federal government. Each January, the Continua attempt to collect data from all homeless
4

service providers about the number and type of beds (emergency, transitional, or permanent supportive) provided. Additionally, those service providers are asked to provide information on how many people they had utilizing the beds on a single specified night (sheltered count). Eventually, HMIS will provide this data for all participating service providers, leaving only the independent providers to be surveyed.
Unsheltered Counts
There are two generally accepted methodologies for conducting counts of unsheltered persons.3 The service based method uses surveys collected from persons seeking service. The surveys are generally collected during a one-to two-week period, but focus on a single point-in-time. The other method is the street count or canvassing method that uses a visual count of people sleeping outdoors, in encampments, and in abandoned buildings on a single night. The implementation of these methodologies varies considerably across jurisdictions, and some communities use a hybrid methodology that combines features of each approach.
In Georgia, the locally-based Continua have typically relied on a street count or canvassing methodology. Some Continua have relied exclusively on the canvassing method to obtain their unsheltered counts, where other Continua mostly relied on a canvassing method but also used supplementary surveys to count those who had been hard to locate on the point-in-time night. Some continua relied entirely on service-based count. The Georgia Balance of State Continuum of Care covers 152 counties, many of them rural, presenting a significant challenge in conducting the biennial unsheltered count. While DCA was able to conduct a sheltered count to comply with the 2004 count requirement, until 2008 it did not have a feasible way to count unsheltered homeless people in the 152 counties. To meet the federal requirement, estimation techniques based on count data from other jurisdictions were used. Beginning in 2008, DCA has used a sampling methodology and predictive model developed by statistics faculty at Kennesaw State University.4 In 2017, the data used for the model came from survey counts conducted in 95 counties.5 The counts conducted in the Balance of State were done using surveys collected at locations where people receive services and in places where homeless persons are known to congregate and stay.
1 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of Community Planning and Development. August 2001. Report to Congress: HUD's Strategy for Homeless Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting.
2 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of Community Planning and Development. November 2013. The 2013Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.
3 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of Community Planning and Development. October 2004. A Guide to Counting Unsheltered Homeless People.
4 Jennifer Lewis Priestley. May 2008. Every Georgian Counts: Final Report on Sampling and Modeling. Kennesaw State University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
5 Jennifer Lewis Priestley. June 2013. Every Georgian Counts: 2013 Estimates of Homelessness in Georgia (Revised). Kennesaw State University, Center for Statistics and Analytical Services.
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Appendix B

Homeless Counts by County

COUNTY
APPLING ATKINSON BACON BAKER BALDWIN BANKS BARROW BARTOW BEN HILL BERRIEN BIBB BLECKLEY BRANTLEY BROOKS BRYAN BULLOCH BURKE BUTTS CALHOUN CAMDEN CANDLER CARROLL CATOOSA CHARLTON CHATHAM CHATTAHO CHATTOOG CHEROKEE CITY OF ATLANTA CLARKE CLAY

Unsheltered Homeless Persons (Counts and Predictive Model)

Sheltered Homeless Persons (Emergency and Transitional Housing)

Total Homeless Persons

7

0

7

2

0

2

4

0

4

0

0

0

1

0

1

3

0

3

29

35

64

16

26

42

0

0

0

0

0

0

174

136

310

5

0

5

7

0

7

0

0

0

2

0

2

14

19

33

11

0

11

9

0

9

0

0

0

20

9

29

4

0

4

21

47

68

26

0

26

2

0

2

363

563

926

0

0

0

12

0

12

67

211

278

681

2891

3572

93

146

239

1

0

1

6

COUNTY
CLAYTON CLINCH COBB COFFEE COLQUITT COLUMBIA COOK COWETA CRAWFORD CRISP DADE DAWSON DECATUR DEKALB DODGE DOOLY DOUGHERTY DOUGLAS EARLY ECHOLS EFFINGHAM ELBERT EMANUEL EVANS FANNIN FAYETTE FLOYD FORSYTH FRANKLIN FULTON GILMER GLASCOCK GLYNN GORDON GRADY

Unsheltered Homeless Persons (Counts and Predictive Model)
150 3
118 16
0 35
0 27
6 8 7 1 4 185 8 5 20 27 0 0 22 7 8 4 10 29 37 6 9 90 11 1 68 22 0

Sheltered Homeless Persons (Emergency and Transitional Housing)
100 22 285
0 16
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 275 0 0 40 104 0 0 0 0 0 0 24 21 25 19 0 203 0 0 44 9 0

Total Homeless Persons
250 25 403 16 16 35
0 27
6 8 7 1 4 460 8 5 60 131 0 0 22 7 8 4 34 50 62 25 9 293 11 1 112 31 0

7

COUNTY
GREENE GWINNETT HABERSHAM HALL HANCOCK HARALSON HARRIS HART HEARD HENRY HOUSTON IRWIN JACKSON JASPER JEFF DAVIS JEFFERSON JENKINS JOHNSON JONES LAMAR LANIER LAURENS LEE LIBERTY LINCOLN LONG LOWNDES LUMPKIN MACON MADISON MARION MCDUFFIE MCINTOSH MERIWETH MILLER

Unsheltered Homeless Persons (Counts and Predictive Model)
7 84
3 45
4 11 14
0 6 42 29 0 24 6 6 7 2 4 13 7 1 17 0 8 3 7 5 0 6 13 3 8 5 10 0

Sheltered Homeless Persons (Emergency and Transitional Housing)
8 179 33 78
0 0 0 0 0 34 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 23 0 34 0 0 67 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total Homeless Persons
15 263 36 123
4 11 14
0 6 76 49 0 24 6 6 7 2 4 13 7 1 40 0 42 3 7 72 10 6 13 3 8 5 10 0

8

COUNTY
MITCHELL MONROE MONTGOME MORGAN MURRAY MUSCOGEE NEWTON OCONEE OGLETHOR PAULDING PEACH PICKENS PIERCE PIKE POLK PULASKI PUTNAM QUITMAN RABUN RANDOLPH RICHMOND ROCKDALE SCHLEY SCREVEN SEMINOLE SPALDING STEPHENS STEWART SUMTER TALBOT TALIAFERRO TATTNALL TAYLOR TELFAIR TERRELL

Unsheltered Homeless Persons (Counts and Predictive Model)
1 13
3 7 6 73 41 12 7 49 5 12 8 8 7 4 9 1 5 3 246 17 2 6 0 32 5 1 11 3 1 10 4 3 0

Sheltered Homeless Persons (Emergency and Transitional Housing)
0 0 0 0 0 246 33 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 12 0 199 65 0 0 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total Homeless Persons
1 13
3 7 6 319 74 12 7 58 5 12 8 8 15 4 9 1 17 3 445 82 2 6 0 39 12 1 11 3 1 10 4 3 0

9

COUNTY
THOMAS TIFT TOOMBS TOWNS TREUTLEN TROUP TURNER TWIGGS UNION UPSON WALKER WALTON WARE WARREN WASHINGT WAYNE WEBSTER WHEELER WHITE WHITFIELD WILCOX WILKES WILKINSON WORTH STATE TOTAL

Unsheltered Homeless Persons (Counts and Predictive Model)

Sheltered Homeless Persons (Emergency and Transitional Housing)

Total Homeless Persons

10

20

30

0

26

26

5

8

13

0

0

0

3

0

3

27

96

123

0

0

0

4

0

4

0

13

13

10

0

10

26

17

43

34

0

34

13

11

24

2

0

2

9

0

9

7

12

19

1

0

1

3

0

3

3

0

3

17

106

123

4

0

4

4

0

4

4

0

4

0

0

0

3692

6681

10373

Based on 2017 Homeless Counts from CoCs and Predictive Model

10