Volunteers hit street for biennial count of homeless

Volunteers Miranda Watkins (second from left) and Jamie Jensen gather survey information from two men at The River Cities Travel Center on Tuesday afternoon in downtown Little Rock. The surveys were part of a count of the homeless held Tuesday in Pulaski, Lonoke, Prairie and Saline counties.
Volunteers Miranda Watkins (second from left) and Jamie Jensen gather survey information from two men at The River Cities Travel Center on Tuesday afternoon in downtown Little Rock. The surveys were part of a count of the homeless held Tuesday in Pulaski, Lonoke, Prairie and Saline counties.

Twenty University of Arkansas at Little Rock students, clipboards in hand, gathered under the Broadway Bridge after sunset Tuesday to count the homeless.

In exchange for a jacket, gloves or a bag of food, homeless individuals under the bridge and at eight other sites in Pulaski County filled out forms with information that could help the United States government track who is homeless in central Arkansas.

The biennial survey provides a point-in-time count of the population to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

UALR School of Social Work students Katelyn Simmons, 21, and Kayla Bradford, 22, paired up to interview Curtis Sliffe, 49, who said he and his pug, Chopper, have been homeless "in spurts" since 2008.

While the students talked to Sliffe and approximately 100 other people under the bridge, Sandra Lewis-Payne, Little Rock's HUD homeless coordinator, surveyed people at River City Travel Center in downtown Little Rock.

"We had one family with three children say they were sleeping in their car," Lewis-Payne said. "Usually with families, they go to the shelters."

Volunteers remained at the sites from 3 to 8 p.m. A dozen other volunteers drove to known homeless camps in Pulaski, Lonoke, Prairie and Saline counties, and shelters and transitional housing programs in the four-county area surveyed those in their facilities.

"It allows us to know if we've actually decreased the number of homeless," Lewis-Payne said. "Our goals are ending chronic homelessness by 2015, and also to end homelessness for veterans by 2015. This helps to see where we are."

Every other year, each continuum of care community -- there are seven in Arkansas -- is required to count the number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless in its designated area. The surveys always occur sometime during the last 10 days of January.

The results will be counted toward data about the homeless population nationwide, and it will be included in HUD's 2015 annual homeless assessment report to Congress. Findings from Tuesday night's count will be tabulated in February and submitted to HUD in April, said Andy Halfhill, lead administrator of Arkansas Homeless Management Information System.

According to statistics from central Arkansas' continuum of care coalition, the Central Arkansas Team Care for the Homeless, volunteers counted 1,066 homeless individuals in the four-county area in 2013. That number was a 25 percent reduction from 2009, when 1,425 people were counted, and a 42 percent reduction from 2007, when 1,822 were counted.

The number of homeless surveyed during the point-in-time count usually falls short of reality, Halfhill said.

"We do a good job to make sure it's accurate, but it's definitely an undercount," Halfhill said. "There are a lot of people who aren't going to come out. There are people who won't get word of it or who stay in places like abandoned houses -- some camps just won't get counted."

Before the results are finalized, members of Central Arkansas Team Care for the Homeless will go through the surveys to ensure they're not duplicated and are "as accurate as possible," Halfhill said. The organization's board of directors must approve the results before they're submitted.

To pinpoint subpopulations, the survey asks individuals their age, gender, race and where they're sleeping. They're also asked whether they're veterans and whether they have a disability, mental illness, chronic alcohol or drug abuse or HIV or AIDS.

Lewis-Payne said the statistics help to determine how HUD distributes funding.

HUD announced Monday that it awarded $1.8 billion in grants to support a total of 8,400 homeless housing and service programs across the U.S. In Arkansas, $4,923,250 was awarded to 31 programs, 20 of which are in central Arkansas.

"It's based on the size of the homeless population," she said. "So, now we can see actually where the need is and where we need more funding."

The surveying will continue until 3 p.m. today at locations in Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Metro on 01/28/2015

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