The Homeless Chronicles. Part 15

This article is Part 15 in a multi-part series. It is Part 2 in a 4-part mini-series about the state of the homeless in Orange County as assessed by the County. Previously we pointed out that the data on the County’s website as of mid-December 2019 is not up-to-date, and in a number of instances, years behind. Completeness is pretty good, but certainly not up to the private sector level and Timeliness is mentioned but not reported on. That’s disturbing when you realize that the County has more than 11,000 homeless people and the number is growing.

CURRENT STATUS

When you look at homelessness there are a number of major questions to address. Here are some examples –

• Is homelessness changing and how is it changing?
• Are we providing for the homeless we have in housing, employment, physical and mental health treatment?

HOW MANY HOMELESS ARE THERE?

According to the Statistics report, in 2019 the County has 4,871 active unsheltered clients (42%) and 6,804 active sheltered clients (58%).

According to the Point-in-Time Report on Jan 25, 2019 there were 2,899 sheltered people and 3,961 unsheltered people. Note the differences between the Statistics report and the PIT report. Since the PIT report theoretically incorporated all the sheltered people from the Statistics report, differences in numbers are troublesome. If there are 6,804 sheltered active clients, how does the PIT only provide data on 2,899 of them? We know from one of our recent articles that the Copunty loses data (Click Here). Can they lose that much?

HOME LONG DO THEY STAY HOMELESS?

According to the System Performance report the average length of being homeless was 277 days in 2017, then 466 days in 2018: a 68% increase! The median days was 132 in 2017, then 201 in 2018: a 52% increase!

There is no data for 2019.

HOW MANY ARE FIRST TIME HOMELESS?

According to the System Performance report in 2017 4,629 were homeless for the first time. In 2018 it was 5,342. That’s an increase of 25%.

There is no data for 2019.

HOW MANY BEDS ARE AVAILABLE?

According to the Housing Inventory Count, the housing stock was about 6,000 beds from 2015 to 2019. It went down substantially from 2015 to 2016 and then gradually returned to the 2015 level by March 2019 (the latest data).

Looking at the data, there were big increases in Emergency Shelter beds, from 1,103 to 2,389 (Up 117%) and corresponding decreases in Transitional Housing beds, from 1,578 to 1,105. (Down 43%) and decreases in Rapid Re-Housing beds, from 1,048 to 774 (Down 26%). A focus on increasing emergency beds at the expense of transitional housing and rapid re-housing works against long-time solutions, though it does let Politicians give the impression that something is being done.

According to the CoC Board Reports, 100% of the Permanent Supportive Housing beds were filled, but Transitional Housing was around 80% and Emergency Shelter beds are highly variable, from 60% to 110%.

HOW MANY HOMELESS ARE WAITING FOR HOUSING?

According to the CoC Board Reports from April 2018 to March 2019 the number of “households waiting for housing on prioritization” varied a lot, from 708 (Oct 2018) to 1,243 (Dec 2018). Bear in mind the data here refers to “households” without any more information about how many adults and children there are waiting. Assuming an average household size of 3 people, the numbers of individuals waiting ranged from 2,000 to 4,000.

SUMMARY

These are pretty disappointing statistics. The first problem is that it’s hard to analyze what’s happening since the data is so spread out, from 2017 to 2019 and all points in between. Here’s a summary –

• Number of homeless is up
• Length of homelessness is up
• First time homeless is up
• Beds for homeless is not up
• Existing beds are not 100% filled (not even close)
• The number of people waiting for beds is highly variable, and in excess of 2,000 each month, even while existing beds are not being filled.

Next time we’ll focus on what’s being achieved.

About the Author

Dr. Jim Gardner is the former Mayor of Lake Forest. A Clinical Psychologist, he is a former University Professor and Department Head. He authored several reports about homelessness.