On January 28 of this year, the Cape and Islands Regional Network on Homelessness counted 365 unhoused individuals on Cape Cod and the Islands. That's 203 fewer people than last year.
But according to Charise Madison — Homeless Management Information System director for the Barnstable County Department of Human Services — that doesn't necessarily mean fewer people on Cape Cod and the Islands are homeless.
“It did show a decrease in the overall number of people experiencing homelessness, but that's mainly attributed to the decrease in shelter availability,” she said. “It heavily impacted this year’s point-in-time counts.”
The Cape and Islands Regional Network on Homelessness is a coalition of state, county and municipal governments, as well as nonprofit organizations, social service providers and other partners. This type of collaboration is called a continuum of care.
Continuums of care can get funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But to do so, they must conduct what is known as a point-in-time count. This is where a continuum of care takes one day out of the year to count up all the people experiencing homelessness in the region it serves. This includes sheltered and unsheltered people.
“We use this data to not only report to the federal government on what our needs are in the community, but we use that to design decisions on where to focus resources to advocate for shelter availability and to work with our community partners to develop more long-term housing solutions,” Madison said.
The Cape and Islands Regional Network on Homelessness counted 260 sheltered individuals this year, compared to 397 last year.
According to the Barnstable County website, where the results of the point-in-time count are available for public viewing, this drop in the number of sheltered individuals is likely due to the region’s recent loss of 235 temporary family shelter beds.
For this year’s point-in-time count, unhoused people were asked whether they were experiencing homelessness for the first time, Madison said, and “we did see that a lot of people were.”
She noted that there were some similarities among those who were new to homelessness.
“For those that are experiencing homelessness for the first time, we did notice a trend, especially for older adults — those over the age of 55,” she said. “It's one of the focus areas that we're trying to redirect our efforts to this coming year.”
The Cape and Islands Regional Network on Homelessness also counted 60 unsheltered individuals, which is 16 fewer than last year.
The public/private partnership also found that cold weather on the night of the count led to an apparent increase in the number of individuals in emergency shelters.
“We had 74 people that were in inclement-weather beds due to the wind chill being below 32 degrees that night,” Madison said. “It just highlights the need for shelter on Cape Cod and on the Islands."
