The Coalition for the Homeless—the nonprofit that leads The Way Home, the local homelessness response system in Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties—will lead the annual Homeless Count & Survey to identify the number of people experiencing homelessness in Houston and surrounding counties the week of Jan. 24, 2022.

The results of the 2022 Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey, also known as the “PIT Count,” will be publicly released in spring 2022 following independent verification by an epidemiologist. The results will shed light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected homelessness in the region.

Since October 2020, the Coalition has led the Community COVID Housing Program (CCHP), an initiative that has placed a record number of people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing using federal COVID relief funding.

“From the beginning of the pandemic, we have known that people experiencing homelessness were uniquely vulnerable to the virus,” said Michael Nichols, president and CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless. “We also anticipated that more people would fall on hard times and fall into homelessness as a result of the pandemic. Regardless of whether homeless numbers go up or down this year, we know that thousands fewer people are living on the streets or in shelters thanks to our housing-focused pandemic response, the Community COVID Housing Program, which was made possible through the support of the City of Houston and Harris County.”

The Coalition last conducted the Count in January 2021; however, the results of the 2021 Count were not directly comparable to those of years past due to changes in methodology necessitated by the pandemic. The Coalition anticipates returning to the standard methodology in 2022 to facilitate comparisons with data from 2020 and prior years.

The Count offers a snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in the region on a given night. This year the “night of record” is Monday, Jan. 24. The Coalition will determine the number of people staying in shelters on that night by pulling records from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). The unsheltered count takes place the following days—Tuesday, Jan. 25 to Thursday, Jan. 27—when volunteers and staff of local service provider nonprofits canvass the three-county region to survey people living unsheltered, using an app on their mobile devices. They will also collect information about whether people fell into homelessness due to COVID.

Volunteers are invited to participate in the Count by registering online at thewayhome.pointintime.info.

The Community COVID Housing Program (CCHP)

Led by the Coalition, the $65 million CCHP aims to substantially accelerate the placement of people experiencing homelessness in permanent housing as a public health measure. The CCHP is funded by federal COVID relief funding from the City of Houston and Harris County as well as private philanthropic support.

The initial goal of the housing initiative was to house 5,000 people experiencing homelessness—or on the verge of homelessness—over two years. Since the official start of the CCHP in October 2020:

·        Approximately 1,040 people experiencing chronic (long-term) homelessness have been housed via a “bridge” to Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH);

·        Approximately 3,030 people have been housed via Rapid Rehousing (RRH), meaning they have received short-term rental assistance and light case management services;

·        And approximately 2,540 people have been prevented from falling into homelessness via Diversion, a program that provides financial assistance, family mediation or creative problem-solving to help individuals keep or regain housing and prevent them from entering emergency shelter.

·        A total of more than 6,600 people have been housed from Oct. 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2021, and the work will continue through September 2022.

The 2022 Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey

The Count is a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) for the local Continuum of Care (CoC) funding process, which furnishes the majority of funding for programs that provide permanent housing and supportive services to people experiencing homelessness in the region. The 2021 application process is anticipated to bring more than $42 million to our area.

Results from the 2022 Count will help track the progress of The Way Home’s ongoing collaborative efforts between local service agencies. The Count results also help the Coalition and partner agency homeless outreach teams in learning where unsheltered people are sleeping for continued outreach throughout the year, illuminate specific demographic and programmatic gaps, and provide additional information needed to end chronic homelessness and continue to improve the local homeless response system.