This past week the Homeless Coalition in Rapid City undertook their annual homeless count. Counting the homeless is important for all non-profit organizations who deal with homelessness as it helps us understand exactly how big the community need is for our services. By knowing the size of the need we can properly tailor the size and scope of our programs and—most importantly—know how much funding we will need to carry out our programs. It helps when asking for funding from different government and private sources to be able to include how many homeless there are in your community.
Counting the homeless presents several challenges, however. By HUD definitions of “homeless”, the count includes anyone who does not have a permanent place to stay. This includes hotels and motels, living in cars, living with friends. Many people living in these situations don’t consider themselves homeless. Also, many people living in these situations don’t trust official looking people with clipboards knocking on their doors. Often, families living in hotel rooms will be doubled up and are worried that you will report them, getting them evicted. Homeless families living in cars or even on the streets will be worried that you will report them and get their children taken away. Official looking people in clipboards don’t always have the highest track record of keeping the interests of the poor in mind.
So to count those who don’t want to be counted, you have to get creative with your approach. Knocking on doors and digging through brush by the creek is an important part of the homeless count that does achieve results—but will only count a percentage of those who are actually homeless. We need more. The Cornerstone Rescue Mission counts at its meals during the 24-hour counting period. The VA office allowed the Homeless Coalition to count at the Veteran’s Stand Down that coincided with the homeless count.
At the Teton Coalition, we followed a well known saying in the non-profit world “If you feed them, they will come.” We partnered with the United Urban Warrior Society and sponsored a community meal right in our own parking lot. We went to the neighboring motels to invite the residents out to eat with us. Once people arrived they were given surveys to fill out while they waited in line to eat. Of course, if you weren’t comfortable filling out a survey you didn’t have to. Thanks to the great folks who showed up and volunteered, we were able to gain a little bit of trust and convince our homeless neighbors that the surveys were harmless—and only used to provide more effective services. Over the course of 2 ½ hours, we served 300 people in our parking lot. Nearly all of these people filled out their surveys.
If we are serious about counting the homeless and making sure that every person in our cities gets counted and helped, we have to get beyond the traditional methods of community interaction. We no longer live in time where most people will respond to door-knocking. I know there are even more innovative ideas than what the Teton Coalition did, just waiting to be tried. Given the success of something as simple as having a community barbeque I know that in the future my fellow VISTAs will come up with even more successful, more creative ways of counting and aiding the homeless.
