Homeless 1-day tally is too low, study says

This year’s annual count of Oahu’s "street" homeless underestimated numbers by as much as 60 percent, according to a new study.

The federally mandated one-day count, conducted by the state in January, found that 1,475 individuals were living on the street, on the beach or anywhere else the homeless are — other than in a shelter.

Results from the new independent study, however, show an undercount of between 587 and 875, putting the real number of Oahu street homeless well above 2,000 and as high as 2,350.

"Everyone knows the homeless count is a minimum number, since it is not possible to find every unsheltered person when the count is performed," said Carlos Peraro, the report’s co-author.

Knowing the flaws in the state’s annual Homeless Point-In-Time count, the Pearl City consultant and administrator of the state’s Homeless Management Information System decided to embark on the study with Michael Ulmann, a Baltimore consultant who also works on the system.

The researchers compared data from the point-in-time count to the Homeless Management Information System, the state’s electronic data base using information from Hawaii’s homeless services providers, to come up with the discrepancies.

The report, being prepared for submittal to a peer-reviewed journal, offers suggestions for how the state can use the more comprehensive online database to improve the count results and help the state better serve the homeless and especially those who fall through the cracks, Peraro said.

More accurate counts will also help politicians and policymakers make better decisions that affect the homeless, he said.

State homeless coordinator Colin Kippen acknowledged the limitations of the point-in-time counts and welcomed the report and its recommendations, saying it will not only help those who conduct the annual count do a better job finding the homeless but will lead to more accurate and meaningful data.

"We want to base policy on the best information possible," Kippen said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires communities to complete a count of homeless at least once every two years. The state has conducted a count every year since 2009.

The annual count is conducted for the state by providers of homeless services and volunteers, who fan out across the island in search of homeless in places where they are known to be.

Nearly 14,000 people sought some form of homeless services across the state from July 2011 to June 2012, according to the University of Hawaii’s latest Homeless Services Utilization report.

Based on this year’s point-in-time count, held on Jan. 22, the state reported that the number of Oahu homeless living on streets instead of in shelters rose 11 percent over last year.