Census: More families homeless
June 4, 2006
By Kirsten Stewart
The Salt Lake Tribune
A projected 15,015 men, women and children this year will
spend time in emergency shelters or living on the streets, in
parks, viaducts and cars, according to a newly refined state
census of Utah's homeless.
That figure, which is less than 1 percent of the state
population, is roughly the same rate of homelessness reported
in 2005.
But Utah's homeless task force director Lloyd Pendleton
cautioned against using the numbers to draw year-to-year
comparisons or pass judgment on the success of efforts to
combat homelessness.
A similar survey two years ago pegged the homeless population
at 24,000, an exaggerated number, Pendleton said. In 2005, it
dropped to 14,970.
"I was curious whether we would see a big jump up or
drop this year. We didn't, which gives me more confidence in
the method we're using," Pendleton said. "These are
still soft numbers. It's not an exact count. But it will give
us a better baseline for the future."
Obtaining a complete picture of homelessness involves as much
art as science.
Historically, Utah based its census on a point-in-time roll
call of the number of people in shelters and transitional
housing units.
The latest tally is similarly based on a snapshot taken Jan.
24, but it goes a step further to include counts of street
transients and families living in cars.
Excluded from the census, however, are men and women who
spent the evening in a jail or in a hospital and 7,774
homeless children in the public school system.
Because these children tend to "couch surf," or
live "doubled-up" with family and friends, they
don't qualify as officially homeless under the definition set
by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
Pendleton said.
The data also show what low-income advocates have known
anecdotally: More families, headed mostly by single mothers,
are falling into homelessness than ever before.
Most, or 38 percent, are propelled by domestic violence,
whereas the largest risk factor for single adults is
substance abuse, followed by mental illness, according to the
census.
The state's largest homeless shelter, the Road Home, saw
a marked increase in families this year, said its associate
director, Michelle Flynn. "But it's not just us."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also spent
more on hotel vouchers this year for families in crisis, she
said.
Also apparent from the census is the shortage of resources
for the homeless.
In Salt Lake County, as many as 2,705 homeless people will
spend weeks, sometimes a month, on waiting lists before being
admitted to shelters. In the meantime, many of them live on
the streets.
In the five-county region anchored by Washington County,
shelters will turn away an estimated 145 people - more than
half the unserved population.
"They've had tremendous growth down there,"
Pendleton said.
Single men still outnumber women and children, comprising 59
percent of the homeless population.
Most of the homeless cluster in Salt Lake County, drawn by
the breadth of services available there.
kstewart@sltrib.com