Demographics and Geography: Estimating Needs

This paper summarizes the latest and/or most comprehensive data on important characteristics of homeless people. It looks at the demographics and distribution of homeless people among communities of different types, as documented by a range of research methodologies in various jurisdictions and nationwide. It also examines how characteristics may differ depending on the locations in which a study looked for people to include, and factors that seem to make people vulnerable to homelessness. The paper then turns to the need of local jurisdictions for information to help with service planning. It discusses the variety of people and agencies that might need information for planning, the types of decisions they must make, and what types of information would help them the most. It continues with a review of several strategies that work at the local level for collecting the most useful data, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Finally it draws the conclusion that every jurisdiction will be best served by gathering its own information about service needs for planning purposes. Lessons for Practitioners, Policy Makers, and Researchers The best national and local studies of homeless populations show highly variable results for most demographic characteristics, including gender, age, race, ethnicity, household structure, and length of homelessness. No national data source will ever exist that can provide adequate information for local planning. Each jurisdiction should gather its own data on population characteristics and service needs. Local data are the only data that are truly useful for local planning. Feasible and reasonably-priced ways exist for local jurisdictions to collect their own data. More and more jurisdictions are doing so. Having your own data eliminates local arguments about the existence of the problem and focuses attention on what to do about it. What you learn about the characteristics and need of your jurisdiction's homeless population will depend on where you go for information. If you go only to shelters you will miss a lot, even if you have a shelter tracking database that provides unduplicated data over time.