Regional Network on Homelessness Releases Results of Annual Homeless Count

stk23556sisBARNSTABLE – The annual homeless count for the Cape and Islands slightly decreased from 2014 to this year.

The Regional Network on Homelessness conducted the count in late February after being postponed from January due to the winter storms.

The homeless count dropped from 379 in 2014 to 362 with the biggest change being a fall in unsheltered individuals from 74 to 38.

Regional Network on Homelessness Coordinator Paula Schnepp said progress is being made to decrease the number of homeless in the area, but the numbers could be lower because of the harsh winter.

“We have made a lot of progress in coordinating our efforts to get people into housing,” she said. “Sometimes that is polled from people who are in the shelter but we are also trying to target people who are unsheltered as well.”

The counts are conducted in every community and are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Schnepp said they do try to collect data while making the count.

“We actually try to gather quite a bit of data on the folks that we find that are homeless,” she said. “[We’re] trying to ascertain if they have a chronic disability, veterans status and age.”

Other demographic information collected from the count include gender, race and ethnicity of the individuals and families.

This information is available for review on the Barnstable County Department of Human Services website at www.bchumanservices.net.

The Regional Network on Homelessness plans to present the findings of the results and discuss the implications for future projects at the next Policy Board meeting on June 22.

For the second straight year, the state’s unaccompanied homeless youth survey was performed at the same time of the homeless count.

Volunteers, including youth ambassadors, surveyed over 327 youths between the ages of 13 and 24 to get a homeless youth count.

Official results of this survey will not be available until the fall, but prelimary results show over 26 percent of those surveyed said they had experienced an episode of homelessness sometime in their life.



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