Who is Homeless in Northeast Louisiana?

Homeless-in-NELA-2019

National Definition of Homelessness

To volunteer or get more info for Jan. 2021’s count: homecoalition@gmail.com

The HOME Coalition, which is our region’s Continuum of Care coordinating body for homeless service providers, completes our region’s Point in Time count of the homeless. The region covered is the 12 Northeast LA parishes. This is a 24-hour count of the homeless, defined as those living in places not meant for human habitation (streets, cars, parks, etc.) and in emergency and temporary housing programs. This type of count is done all across the country during the last 10 days of January each year. In Louisiana, all the regions coordinate, so the count is done on the same day and completed during the same week. Although this data is for a 24-hour period, we have a statistically derived factor we apply to it to estimate the annual number of homeless each year.

The data collected includes demographic and needs information. The purpose of the survey is to provide detailed, factual data that helps the region assess our current homeless population’s needs. Then we can assess our services system and see if we are matching the two up. Click below for a fact sheet with the number of homeless in our region identified on 2018’s Point in Time count. The numbers produced by the Point in Time count provide the basis for a lot of our region’s planning and funding decisions on a local, regional and national basis. More importantly, this information is one way we can see what kind of impact we are having on our homeless population – is the number of homeless persons going up or down, are their needs being met, etc. As you can see, this is vital data for a number of reasons. We are grateful for the many organizations, volunteers, businesses and others throughout the region who come together to make this activity possible.

To see how our region compares to the nation as a whole, check out the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (2019) presented to Congress by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.