Today is the first day of the Homeless Point in Time Count in the tri-county region.
The PIT Count is an annual assessment of the homeless population in New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender counties. In other jurisdictions, it takes place in a single day. But locally, the Cape Fear Homeless Continuum of Care serves a unique jurisdiction, and so splits each county into its own 24-hour period to give adequate resources to the count.
Today is New Hanover County’s count. Brunswick County’s will take place on January 25, and Pender County’s will take place on January 26.
CoC Homeless Services Director Andrea Stough said at a recent CoC meeting, "Some people really want to be counted. And so we want to make sure that we were meeting folks where they're at and being a resource."
The CoC also provides donations to draw unhoused individuals to the count. While it's a good metric of change over time, many national experts consider the PIT counts to be an undercount, because of the prevalence of "invisible homeless." That's the population that isn't engaged in services and may not be in the street at night, because they're staying on a friend's couch or doubling up with a relative. But that kind of short-term stay is unstable, and they have no permanent address.
According to a CoC press release, the PIT Count surveys people experiencing homelessness to collect demographics including race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, age, and length of time homeless, among other categories. HUD uses the data to evaluate the effectiveness of local agencies' efforts to address homelessness and to determine funding amounts for them; HUD also compiles this data into the Annual Homeless Assessment Report, which is provided to Congress.
While it may be generally considered an undercount, it’s a helpful metric to see how homelessness has changed over time in the region. Previous years of data are available here.
For the three days of counting, each county will have a location where individuals and families experiencing homelessness can choose to go if they would like to participate in the quick survey.
These locations for each county will be as follows:
- New Hanover County — Living Hope Day Shelter (Basement of First Baptist Church at 411 Market Street, Wilmington),
- Brunswick County — Brunswick Partnership for Housing (250 E. 11th Street, Southport)
- Pender County — Pender County Annex (15060 Highway 17, Hampstead).
The CFHCoC is a collaboration of community partners working to create effective interventions that enhance system-wide performance to help end homelessness. The CFHCoC is a division of the Cape Fear Council of Governments, which serves as the HUD-required lead agency.
Activities of the CFHCoC include stabilizing households to reduce the length of time families/individuals experience homelessness, fostering increases to household income, increasing successful housing placements, and supporting housing retention.
