New count reveals fewer unhoused people in SLO County — but many are homeless for longer
After multiple coronavirus-related delays, the San Luis Obispo County’s latest Point-in-Time homelessness count offered both causes for concern and reasons for optimism.
People experiencing homelessness in the county were likely to spend more time on the streets than before the COVID-19 pandemic — but overall numbers of those experiencing homelessness locally did decline, especially among veterans and youths, according to a report on the 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) count released Tuesday.
The report details the results of the county’s latest PIT count, conducted in February, and offers a birds-eye view of homelessness in San Luis Obispo County.
“The point-in-time count is still important, because then we can compare it to patterns year over year,” said George Solis, manager of the county Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care program.
The analysis was completed by Applied Survey Research, with data collected by county volunteers and outreach organizations such as El Camino Homeless Organization, Transitions Mental Health Association and 5Cities Homeless Coalition.
Here are the key takeaways from the 2022 count.
Overall homelessness declined, but length of being unhoused increased
While SLO County’s homeless population declined 2% from 1,483 in 2019 to 1,448 in 2022, 83% of this year’s survey respondents reported spending 12 months or more being homeless, according to the PIT count report.
That represents a 31% increase from 2019, which saw far more respondents self-reporting periods of less than 12 months, Solis said.
“It’s taking longer to get (people experiencing homelessness) housed than in previous years,” he said. “We definitely want to reduce the length of time people are experiencing homelessness and (work on) getting them into housing.”
Prolonged homelessness was made more difficult because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Solis said.
In 2022, high numbers of people experiencing homelessness reported having chronic illnesses, and 22% of respondents cited COVID-19 as the main cause of their being unhoused.
Devon McQuade, associate director of 5Cities Homeless Coalition, said living in homelessness can make attending doctors’ appointments and finding consistent medical treatment difficult — a problem exacerbated by COVID-19.
McQuade said the COVID-19 rent protections that kept many people from going homeless during the pandemic have largely expired, leading to an uptick in rental assistance requests.
“We always encourage people to act early if you’re not going to be able to pay your rent, (to) give us a call and get that process started,” she said. “We’d love to have a super quick turnaround time, but just because of the the regulations and the documentation requirements, it can take a little bit of time to get approved for that assistance.”
Even with homeless prevention and job assistance from the county, Solis said, getting and holding a job while homeless is difficult, and many people in the county are struggling to meet rent on their incomes.
“They just don’t make enough to afford the rents here,” he said.
Biennial count shows positive change for homeless youth, veterans
The 2022 PIT Count did provide some reasons for optimism for homeless veterans and youths.
According to the county data, the number of homeless veterans dropped to 16 in the most recent count, compared to 144 in 2019.
That was the lowest total recorded since 2015, according to the report.
This demographic is still more likely to live on the street than in a shelter, according to the report.
According to the data, roughly 88% of veterans experiencing homelessness locally were unsheltered, compared with 97% in 2019.
Overall, the report called the decline in the homeless veteran population “a major success in outreach and recovery efforts for this group.”
Figures for youth homelessness also improved between the 2019 and 2022 counts.
The 2022 count included 77 cases of youth homelessness, compared to 174 in 2019.
Solis said getting an accurate count of youth and transition-age youth can be more difficult than with other unhoused populations.
“Typically. youth is harder to count — let’s say they’re more hidden,” Solis said. “When these communities go out and do the Point-In-Time count, the youth population generally doesn’t really mix with the general population. The youth might be couch surfing ...”
In general, those experiencing homelessness skewed older, with 77% of the unhoused population over the age of 25.
Middle-aged people between the ages of 41 and 50 made up the largest number of people experiencing homelessness, with a total of 29% in that age range.
COVID-19 causes delays, adjustments in count
McQuade said Point-In-Time counts are likely to undercount homeless populations such as youth and families.
The count is not a comprehensive census of all unhoused people, she noted, but is a visual count of as many unhoused people as possible on a given day.
”Part of why we do (the count) in the morning is because people are still usually sleeping,” McQuade said. “Once it gets late out and it’s a little warmer, people are up and moving around and you risk duplication or missing folks who may have left their camp and are out in the community.”
Meanwhile, COVID-19 significantly impacted the count.
COVID-19 reduced the carrying capacity of the county’s shelters — increasing the length of homelessness for many counted — and delayed the PIT count from its original 2021 start date to February 2022.
The spread of the omicron variant made data collection more difficult, Solis said.
He said that some tactics used for reporting on the number of unhoused people in previous PIT counts, such of the use of “peer guides” with experience with homelessness and knowledge of existing homeless populations, were not always feasible during the pandemic.
McQuade said her organization’s volunteers, who focused on the youth homeless count, were grateful for the extended 48-hour window to complete their count, as it allowed volunteers to seek out more hotspots for homeless youth.
“We definitely know that the (homeless youth) population is still out there, but I just think that with the methodology of doing this count and needing a response in such a short period of time, that it’s challenging to get those numbers,” McQuade said.
This story was originally published July 23, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
