A Step Back: Counting the Homeless

Overview

Before jumping any further into how to resolve the problem of homelessness, it should be useful to take a step back and look at how many people are homeless and more specifically how many veterans are homeless. ("Who" is homeless will follow in another post.)

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 671,888 homeless persons (pdf) counted in the 2007 annual nationwide "Point-in-Time" count. Among those, 58% were sleeping in an emergency shelter or in transitional housing, and the remainder were sleeping on the streets or in other places not meant for human habitation such as in cars, boats, tents, and abandoned/condemned buildings. There were 423,400 homeless individuals (63%) and the remainder (37% or 248,500 persons) were in homeless families.

Approximately 72% of homeless persons in families were sheltered, while approximately half of homeless individuals were sheltered. At the same time, there were approximately 60,800 homeless persons in New York State, and 80% (48,640) of them were in New York City. The remaining 20% (12,160) were upstate or on Long Island.

According to the same HUD report, approximately 1.6 million individuals used a homeless shelter between October 1, 2006 and September 30, 2007. Importantly, this does not include individuals who opted not to use a shelter, for a number of possible factors including lack of space, refusal to comply with substance abuse rules, and a number of other understandable reasons. It also excludes women and children who sought refuge in domestic violence shelters.

Homeless Veterans
The most recent VA estimates indicate that approximately 131,000 veterans were homeless on any given night in 2008. It is estimated that over the course of a year, approximately double that number experience homelessness at least once. The first estimate is a result of an annual survey by the VA of service providers, homeless and formerly homeless individuals, and other interested individuals called Project CHALENG, who are asked to estimate the number of homeless veterans in their catchment area. This methodology has advantages (ease of administration, low cost) and limitations (accuracy).

Veterans have long been overrepresented among the homeless population relative to their proportion of the total population, though this has not always been the case (see page 9 of pdf). World War II and Korean War veterans were less likely to be homeless than their non-veteran peers. The overrepresentation appears to go back to the Vietnam era. Veterans were found to comprise 12.7% of the total population at the time of the 2000 census. The most recent estimates suggest that veterans comprise between 23% and 40% of the homeless population. Along the same lines, the National Coalition for the Homeless notes (pdf) that approximately 40% of homeless men are veterans while veterans comprise 34% of the adult male population.

Iraq and Afghanistan Vets

Between 2005 and 2007, the VA identified 2,986 veterans who had served in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom - OIF) and Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom - OEF) who had become homeless since since separation from the armed forces. As have all veterans, before them, veterans of the OIF/OEF era come with their own unique set of challenges and also their own unique set of resources to draw on. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appear in considerable numbers in this population. The Congressional Research Service reports (pdf) that, between 2003 and 2007, there were 43,779 TBI diagnoses and 39,365 PTSD diagnoses among OIF/OEF vets. The Center for American Progress suggests (pdf) that 1.4 million troops had served in OIF/OEF as of March 2007. The military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported in March 2008 that more than a million troops had served in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

While the total number of homeless veterans has been falling, the number of women veterans has been moving in the opposite direction, driven mostly if not entirely by the vast increase in the number of women serving in the military. According to recent testimony before the House of Representatives' Committee on Veterans' Affairs, more than 200,000 women have served in OIF and OEF operations, up from 7,500 in Vietnam and 41,000 in the first Gulf War. According to the same testimony, as many as 6,550 of the estimated 131,000 homeless veterans may be women.

Finally, veterans with families who are either homeless or precariously housed are another population that merits consideration. There are a number of veterans with families who have faced the possible or actual loss of their housing, and one of the problems that they face is that many emergency shelters and transitional shelters are unable to accommodate them either because of the design of their facilities or because of restrictions on funding. The extent of these problems is unclear.

Challenges in Counting
Estimates of the homeless populations at every level are subject to error from problems in measurement, actual fluctuation of homeless populations as people find and lose housing, and from differing definitions of who is "homeless."

New York City, which has employed what is likely the most accurate of street homeless population counts for large metropolitan ares, has likely understated its homeless population, though the City denies the allegations. Note that this count refers to "street" homelessness only. NYC's shelter census, as of March 11, 2009, was 35,135. Shelter counts are collected via Homeless Management Information Systems, which have proliferated under pressure from Congress since 2004. Shelter counts, for obvious reasons, vary with seasons and weather.

Homeless population counts are, as noted above, affected by definitions of "homelessness." There is not one single definition of "homelessness" under which the federal government operates, but the HUD definition has the most widespread effects on housing. The HUD definition was expanded in May 2009, but had previously excluded individuals and families "doubling up" with friends or relatives from being counted as homeless, and likewise excluded individuals and families living in motels. The National Coalition for the Homeless notes that "homeless families living in shared housing for more than two week duration and single adults and childless couples living in shared housing due to loss of housing and economic hardship" are still excluded.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that including "doubled up" individuals in the total homeless population count would expand the total homeless population from 744,000 on any given night by more than three million.