photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Members of the point-in-time count team that the Journal-World accompanied enter a campsite in the wooded area near the intersection of Eighth and Delaware streets in East Lawrence on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.

As housing advocates reflect on data coming from the point-in-time homeless count from earlier in the year, they hope the snapshot of information, including questions about respondents’ origins, can help focus efforts for outreach and solve broader problems.

As the Journal-World reported, the point-in-time count in Douglas County, a data survey mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, found 414 people were experiencing homelessness in the county on the night of the count — a number up 18% since last year.

The HUD count is required to be done by state agencies each year, with the intention of providing a picture of how many homeless individuals, sheltered and not, are in a community on a single January night. Although an interesting data point, experts say the count does not provide a complete picture because the survey often asks personal questions and people can choose to not participate.

Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the Homeless Solutions Division for Lawrence, said the local number was in line with what she was expecting.

Bosch-Hastings said she thought the organizations who conducted the count provided a “robust” survey.

Kristen Egan, the Douglas County regional coordinator with the Kansas Statewide Homelessness Coalition, was part of the team that helped conduct the point-in-time, or PIT, count this year.

“I think our community really wants to get a full clear picture of what’s going on,” Egan said.

Eric Arganbright, the director of community engagement with the Kansas Statewide Homelessness Coalition, said the organization conducts the PIT counts in 101 of the state’s 105 counties, which forces the team to do things differently from other Continuum of Care groups across the state.

For example, groups in Sedgwick County, Shawnee County and Johnson County conduct their own counts. In Wyandotte County, the count is done in coordination with a group in Jackson County, Missouri, as part of Kansas City’s count. Douglas County did not have a combined count.

Arganbright said each year the team has done a better job on the count and gotten better data, in part because there have been more volunteers each year.

This year, volunteers also asked additional questions outside of the questions required by HUD, including how long people have experienced homelessness and how long they had been in the county.

Of the people experiencing homelessness in Douglas County, 289 said they had been there for over 12 months, which is about 70% of the respondents. Two hundred and twelve of the respondents said ​​they had been homeless for more than one year.

Egan said the team added question that to track if people were moving into various regions. The question can help determine whether people in Lawrence are falling into homelessness and, if so, advocates can help figure out ways to prevent that situation.

Bosch-Hastings said one interesting data point was that 17% of respondents said they were employed, which underlined to her that housing costs are too high and more affordable housing is needed.

“The living wage in Lawrence is around 21 bucks an hour,” Bosch-Hastings said. “To be able to afford a one-bed here, you can’t just work any minimum wage job, you’d have to have three of those to afford one.”

Bosch-Hastings said her team has used the data to help expand homeless outreach. Part of that has included helping assess barriers to housing, such as people not knowing how to apply for various services, including help with mental health and drug issues. The city is also enrolling individuals into a homeless management information system that can help case workers follow up with them easier.

Bosch-Hastings acknowledged there is no one easy solution to end homelessness, and there is a limit or balance to what the city can do.

The city said in a news release Friday that it is planning to close the homeless camp behind the Amtrak station in East Lawrence by mid-October, and city officials are working with individuals staying there to help move them into more permanent housing.

Increasing shelter capacity has been a priority in the past year, Bosch-Hastings said. During the point-in-time count in 2023, the city only had 25 shelter beds. Now, the city is up to 125 beds, with the Lawrence Community Shelter’s community of Pallet cabins called “The Village,” which opened earlier in the year, boosting those efforts.

But as all the experts reiterate, the PIT count is only one piece of the puzzle for helping people facing homelessness. Shaelin Ulsh, Homeless Management Information System director with Kansas Statewide Homelessness Coalition, said despite the productiveness of the count and interesting data, there is work to be done the rest of the year

“It’s why we do those other reports, to tell (the story of) the other 364 days,” Ulsh said.