Annual count of homeless population in El Paso County kicks off Monday with push to reach more people

Jan. 20—In an experiment, a four-member team from Westside Cares that will help with Monday's annual Point in Time census of the homeless population in El Paso County will consist of people who have been homeless themselves.

"They have access and credibility that a once-a-year volunteer might not," said Kristy Milligan, CEO of Westside Cares. The consortium of 24 interfaith communities in El Paso County provides food, clothing, rent and utilities assistance and other aid to homeless and low-income Westside Colorado Springs residents.

"This is a pilot for us to see how it works," she said. "They're bringing an expertise that none of the volunteers might have."

The helpers will be compensated for their time and tasked with reaching homeless people who may otherwise go uncounted, Milligan said.

"We are hoping the folks can go to the camps, see folks they may know and invite them to be counted," she said. "The underlying premise is every person is counted because they matter."

For years, it's been a commonly held belief that the number of homeless people staying in emergency shelters and transitional housing and traditionally uninhabitable places such as vehicles, camps, parks, under bridges and other temporary setups are undercounted during the survey, Milligan said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires the headcount in order for communities to receive federal funding for homeless initiatives.

Survey data, along with statistics collected year-round from other sources, helps communities better understand why people lose their housing and, in turn, how communities can design responsive programs to help homelessness be rare, brief and non-recurring, according to organizers.

Undercounting is a "high probably" for a few reasons, Milligan said.

Among those: volunteers constitute the majority of census takers, most people are counted because they access social services on a given day and report where they slept on a given night — this year on Sunday evening into Monday — and the survey is voluntary and self-reported.

An inaccurate count is problematic, Milligan said, because it can shortchange funding the community receives and present an incorrect picture of the homeless population.

"The count is a reference point as we are developing a narrative about homelessness in our community," she said, "and if it is inaccurate, we are not telling the true story."

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The data is necessary to refute misconceptions, Milligan added. For example, some residents think that Colorado Springs attracts homeless people from other states because of the services available.

But Milligan noted that last year's survey showed that 77% of homeless respondents lived in El Paso County when they last had four walls and a key to the door of a residence, and 86% had last lived in Colorado when they had four walls and a key to a unit.

Community Health Partnership, which conducts the Point in Time survey with the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care, a network of groups working to end homelessness, has expanded its overall ability to locate homeless people next week, said Evan Caster, senior manager of homeless initiatives.

Pikes Peak Library District is involved this year, he said, and will deploy a social work team to scour libraries in rural areas of the county such as Calhan and Fountain, which survey volunteers typically don't reach.

"That extra coverage will be really helpful to us this year," Caster said. "We are seeing a lot of great partners, who will go into encampments and really cover those unsheltered or unhoused people."

A total of 75 volunteers, including street outreach teams from fire, city and police departments, agencies such as Homeward Pikes Peak and Rocky Mountain Human Services, as well as Catholic Charities of Central Colorado's Marian House, emergency shelters and other organizations, are assisting, according to Caster.

A software application will track locations of where people spent Sunday night on a map.

The overarching goal of the census is to help people get into permanent housing, Caster said.

Results could be released in late spring, he said.

A surge of COVID-19 cases in the community delayed last year's survey, which was held on Feb. 21.

The 688 people staying in emergency shelters and 488 people living in transitional housing both were the highest ever reported in those categories, organizers said. And the 396 people who were identified as chronic homeless was the largest ever recorded among that population.

However, the 267 people living on the streets represented the lowest unsheltered number since 2015, statistics showed.