Colorado today will take the first statewide survey of its homeless population in 18 years – an exercise organizers hope will help focus government programs where they are most needed.
Advocates for the homeless say the survey is critical to assessing the scope of the state’s homeless problem – often believed to be solely an urban issue.
“There is a growing recognition that homelessness is not just a metro Denver issue but exists in some form across the state,” said John Parvensky, president of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
“The idea is to establish a baseline count that can help see where the need for help is and how to respond to it,” Parvensky said.
If early estimates are on target, the new one-night count is likely to show a fourfold increase since the last survey in 1988 – from 3,637 to about 15,000.
“That would not be surprising at all,” said Parvensky, whose agency did the last survey.
Designed after Denver’s annual homeless count, the point-in-time survey will be done by nonprofit groups, social service providers and faith-based organizations.
Volunteers will use a 26-question, two-page survey tonight and Tuesday morning, focusing on the causes for a respondent’s homelessness and what services they have used recently.
A second count will occur Jan. 22, in part to check the accuracy of the summer count but also to adjust for the number of seasonal resort workers who are back on the job.
The Colorado Interagency Council on Homelessness is overseeing the project. It is a consortium of public and private agencies whose goal is to advise the governor on housing needs and homelessness issues.
“The results of the study should give us a better understanding of the causes of homelessness, help us to more effectively allocate resources and create greater awareness that homelessness is a statewide concern,” said Marva Livingston Hammons, co-chairwoman of the council and executive director of the Colorado Department of Human Services.
If estimates are true that the statewide survey will count 15,000 homeless people, the metro Denver area would account for 60 percent of that number, based on recent counts. The Metropolitan Denver Homeless Initiative in January counted 9,091 homeless people in a one-night survey, an 11.5 percent decline from the year before. The city’s homeless population dropped only 4 percent.
Pueblo County counted 3,753 homeless in 2005 – three- quarters of them families with children – and Colorado Springs reported 1,259 homeless from its own count the same year.
The challenge of a summer survey may be in accounting for the “invisible homeless,” those who do not seek services or who live out of sight, an easy task in Colorado’s high country.
“Because there are more options for people to find safe haven than in the winter, there are reports of people living in caves near Rifle, or camping in the forests,” Parvensky said. “They may account for as much as 10 percent of the homeless in their community.”
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
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