The district court dismissed the suit, largely on procedural grounds. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court for proceedings on the merits. While this is a procedural decision, it is still an interim success for the Law Center on an important case.

At the end of January, public officials and volunteers in communities across the county fanned out, over the course of night, to count the number of homeless persons staying outdoors or in other locations not fit for human habitation (including cars, abandoned buildings, and public transportation facilities like bus stations and airports).  The goal was to contribute to HUD’s annual point-in-time count—the number HUD and most media members cite when asked how many people are homeless in the U.S.  HUD also compares point-in-time numbers from year to year to determine if homelessness is rising or falling.  As the agency puts it: to solve homelessness, we need to know how many people are experiencing it.

Unfortunately, these point-in-time numerations are not fully accurate.  As Law Center Founder and Executive Director Maria Foscarinis explained last year, counts are not completed the same way in each community, often miss many people who are living in dangerous outdoor locations that volunteers avoid, and do not include people who are living doubled-up with relatives or in motels.  We estimate at least 750,000 kids defined as homeless by the Department of Education, plus their families, are not being counted.  And that doesn’t even include children who are too young to attend school.

Indeed, even people now included in the definition of homelessness adopted by HUD as part of the reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Act are not included in the homeless “counts.” The HEARTH Act defines some doubled-up people and motel dwellers as homeless, if they are about to lose their housing. Yet they are excluded from the homeless counts.

This year, several of our colleagues have joined us in raising concerns.  Paul Boden of the Western Regional Advocacy Project notes similar methodological issues, and observes that homeless counts obscure the real issue: a lack of affordable housing.  And another colleague, who has asked to be anonymous, offers these reflections on her experience as one of the volunteers conducting the count.  As she tells us, “the only thing that seems certain is that it was clearly an undercount of the number of individuals experiencing homelessness in the region.  The only question is by how much.”

No method of counting homeless persons, particularly those who live outside, hiding in the shadows, could possibly be perfect.  But significantly better methods exist, such as those used by Urban Institute researcher and expert Martha Burt and her colleagues, who designed and implemented the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients in 1996, and described in the book Helping America’s Homeless, by Burt and her colleagues.  That survey, using sophisticated techniques beyond comparison to the “counts” now being carried out, estimated 1 million homeless people in February 1996 and 3.5 million over the course of the year.  Given the devastation wrought by the foreclosure crisis and recession, not to mention simple population growth, it seems more than likely that these numbers have risen significantly. Perhaps more important, however, is Burt’s admonition that “the focus of concern should not be on the number of literally homeless people, because these can be made to vary considerably, depending on service capacity and definitions.”  Instead, she says, what is important to focus on is that “a very large pool of poor people [is] living such precarious lives” that they are at imminent risk of literal homelessness. Unfortunately, that pool has only gotten larger, with more and more formerly middle class people joining the very poor.

Our team began our count around midnight. The weather was warm for a winter night, but rainy – and on the heels of several very cold days. There were approximately 10 of us – an outreach worker and ten volunteers. In addition to the count, we were conducting interviews and providing resources to those we counted/interviewed. Our assigned region was fairly large – a ten-minute drive by car to get from north-to-south or east-to-west. Since our team leader knew of an individual living in the northern most part of our assigned area, this is where we went first. We learned that the individual had constructed his own home and preferred to be left on his own. He refused the interview and resources. We filled out our tally form, and then moved on to our next stop.

We next stopped to speak with a man living in the crevices of a bridge. He also refused the survey & resources. We stopped at a gas station – and spoke with another two men. One accepted the resources but declined the interview. The second man accepted the resources and completed an interview – the first of the night. We then drove down a side street — where we saw a woman sleeping on the porch of an abandoned house. Three of us approached her – she denied both resources and interview.

Following this, we stopped at another gas station, where we spoke with three individuals — one of whom was a female youth. She completed the interview and accepted the resources. We also spoke with a youngish man and another man. At this stop, I conducted one of the interviews with a 56 year old male who said he had been living on the streets for many years. When asked if he experienced mental illness, he stated he believed that sadness is normal and he feels it frequently – but does not self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. He clearly wanted to talk with someone – so much so that it was challenging to stay on target. When asked if he would like a place to stay for the night, he said he did not because he would just stay up all night (it is safer that way) and sleep all day.

After this, we drove by an individual sleeping on a porch. Several people went to interview the individual. According to the man, although he was sleeping on the porch of the house, his relatives were sleeping inside. They would not let him in because of the children in the household. He completed the interview – and accepted the resources. This prompted the question, though – if this were an enclosed porch, wouldn’t it constitute living doubled-up/couch-surfing (as opposed to street homeless)? It is his stable place to sleep — and all that differentiates it is that it is not enclosed.

We continued to drive through our assigned region. We found three men sleeping on the ground outside a building. While all three accepted resources, only one man agreed to an interview. Notably, the third man said that he was not homeless – just hanging out with two friends after a night of drinking. This interview felt somewhat uncomfortable – as not only were there many of us physically present but he was surrounded by his peers (this clearly reduced the privacy of his response… so much so that his friend responded to several questions for him). As we finished the interview, it began raining heavily. We left and drove by a local park, but did not see anyone – nor did we get out to look.

Then we drove to a local hospital. There were two men sleeping in the waiting area. One man woke up and was interviewed by one of the volunteers (and given resources). There were four more men, and one woman, in the emergency department. Three were sleeping soundly – and thus we could not talk with them. One person was awake – but declined an interview; a second person was awake and agreed to an interview. In total, seven individuals were counted, and two were interviewed.

We then went to the train station. On our way, we stopped by a subway stop – where we saw two individuals. One individual was willing to be interviewed (the other was not).

At the train station, I spoke with a man named WA. WA had been homeless for many years. WA identifies as male – but dresses in gender non-conforming clothes. He has a child, for whom he pays child support. WA said he has a history of child abuse and witnessed considerable violence. He said he feels that sorrow and depression are a normal part of life – and would rather feel them than numb the pain with alcohol & drugs. He says that he received financial support, but lost that and is waiting for a housing voucher. He has made a commitment to live positively this year – including getting housing and writing his memoir. I had hoped to continue talking with WA – but we were approached by a police officer. The police officer interrupted us to ask what we were doing. I explained that it was the night of the PIT – and that we were conducting interviews (and the outreach worker came over to verify this). I was able to continue the interview for a few minutes, but was soon asked to leave. I am not sure if any other individuals were counted during the brief time we were in the train station.

At this point, we had covered our geographic region. It was just about 4am.

Total People Counted: 21; (3 women; 1 female youth; 17 men)

Total People Interviewed: 9; (1 female youth; 8 men)

Emotional response: Overall, the process of conducting the interviews was uncomfortable. The “typical” interview process was that several volunteers would approach one individual. I kept trying to imagine what this would feel like from the individual’s perspective… to all of the sudden, in the middle of the night, to be approached by a large group of people asking for an interview. It felt invasive (as did some of the questions) and I wondered if they truly felt like they could decline participation. The survey itself seemed dehumanizing and potentially traumatizing.

Methods: I am not convinced that a) we found everyone we could or that b) the interviews are at all representative. The weather was warm, but rainy. The staff at the hospital said that the waiting room is usually packed with 50 or more people, but it was remarkably empty on the night of the count. Additionally, I know for a fact that we did not visit several places frequent by those without homes. We had a 50% response rate for the interviews (not adequate by research standards). People on other teams also reported counting a low number of people – and conducting even fewer interviews. Notably, because we could not wake people, we only interviewed two people at the VA (even though there were seven people there) – because five people were sleeping soundly. Would doing the count at an earlier hour make a difference in the number of people we could find and/or interview? To what degree did the weather and other contextual factors influence the count? Additionally, people asked questions about what words/terms on the structured interview meant – leaving it to my (or another volunteer’s) interpretation of what words meant (for instance, “serious mental illness”).

All in all, it was an eye-opening experience that makes me wonder how much more we will really know about the number of individuals experiencing homelessness once the data are counted. The only thing that seems certain is that it was clearly an undercount of the number of individuals experiencing homelessness in the region. The only question is by how much? With regard to the interviews, given the low response rate, what does it really tell us about who is homeless and what their experiences are?

After years of legal advocacy by the Law Center, a federal court has ruled that the U.S. government is not meeting its obligations under Title V of the McKinney-Vento Act.  Under Title V, the federal government is obligated to offer homeless service providers unused government property for free before trying to sell it.  However, the court found that many federal agencies “appear to be hiding potentially eligible properties from the Title V process” — and that this widespread form of land banking is illegal.

This ruling is a critical win for homeless service providers, who have used Title V properties to provide affordable housing, shelter, food, and job training to over 2 million people experiencing homelessness each year.  And with homelessness growing in recent years – over 1 million homeless students are now enrolled in the country’s public schools — the program is more crucial than ever. The Law Center will soon release a report outlining Title V’s successes and offering recommendations for how it could be made an even more effective resource.

In June 2011, the Obama Administration brought a motion to vacate a long-standing injunction governing how it runs Title V on the grounds that it has an “unassailable record” of compliance with the law. The government provided no evidence of their alleged compliance, however, and in his ruling, Chief Judge Lamberth of the U.S. District for the District of Columbia said it was “baffling” that the Administration thought the court would accept its claim of compliance on nothing other than its own say-so.

As a result of this litigation, not only was the injunction on the government not set aside, but the Law Center was also able to enlarge the injunction’s requirements to include a mandate on the government to improve their training, monitoring, and reporting of properties while the order is in place. The Law Center is grateful to Covington & Burling, who argued in court on our behalf, for their tireless efforts to protect Title V and hold the Obama Administration accountable to the law.