This article does an awesome job of making the case that point in time counts are a fallacy!
It seems they are only required to be done every two years!
Here’s a quote from the article to set the tone:
“We are living in a time of increased poverty and increased homelessness. Point-in-time counts are announced as “critical to effective planning and performance management toward the goal of ending homelessness.” This is nonsense.
The headcount doesn’t show us anything. We do the count, then announce an unreal number.
Ending homelessness depends on availability of affordable housing.”
So what’s the answer?
We continue to make the case that we must create a more effective way to move people (in all populations of homelessness) into housing more rapidly (using a Housing First model), create a registry with more accurate “counts” that is immediately actionable & seeks to fund new, innovative housing with radical services approaches that do not require government funds!
That’s all possible, so please engage to see what role you can play!
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Homeless-head-counts-help-no-one-4254191.php#src=fb
Housing First for Savannah's Chronic Homeless 