For the first time since 2005, Sharron Liggins wasn’t working the Point in Time Homeless Count survey Wednesday.
Out of town for a funeral, she might as well have been sitting right next to Count Coordinator Carlotta Blake-King, Blake-King said. The annual count went on, however, for Indiana’s 1A region as it does every year for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Comprised of Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, Lake Station and Hobart, Point in Time is conducted during the fourth week of January in order to ensure the data the counters collect is comparable year-over-year. This year, Blake-King said there would be 20 counters working late into Wednesday night finding out who is homeless in the area.
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If there’s an increase in the number — Point in Time counted 263 homeless people in 2016, compared with 260 in 2015 and 348 in 2014 — Blake-King won’t be surprised. The group will count Purdue Northwest and IVY Tech students in its numbers this time around.
The final tally wasn’t available for the count Thursday.
In 2016, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority identified 5,798 people as homeless comprising 4,351 households — a 1 percent decrease over 2015, according to a fact sheet IHCDA issued. Of those people, 691 were completely unsheltered; 1,319 were children under 18; and 663 were veterans.
“There’s a heavy population of homeless on college campuses,” she said. “If they have no address, they could be getting their education from scholarships or grants, but they don’t have money or housing.”
The survey itself, issued by the IHCDA, was scaled back this year so subjects “would calm down” about the information they’re asked to give. If it were up to Blake-King, the questions put forth by HUD would be expanded to include more detailed questions, such as wording to determine who are the working poor.
“We see homeless in ways that (HUD doesn’t),” Blake-King said. “If they don’t meet five criteria (of being in an emergency shelter, transitional housing, safe haven, motel paid by emergency voucher or a place not meant for human habitation), they don’t recognize them as homeless. We argue with them all the time, but every state develops its own criteria.
“People are working and are homeless. Just because you can bunk up with someone doesn’t mean you have a home of your own.”
For that reason, Blake-King is hopeful that newly appointed HUD Director and former Presidential candidate Ben Carson will step in.
“We’re going to keep writing him letters, of course, but he’s so inexperienced at the job, I really believe he’ll reach out.”
Marcus Martin, executive director for Grace Beyond Borders of East Chicago, was conducting surveys for the count at the city’s Salvation Army branch. He’d conducted five of them around lunchtime.
Much of the homeless population he deals with can be found sleeping in apartment stairwells or in the basements of friends’ houses, he said. When the weather permits, they sleep in their cars if they have them.
To Martin, the count doesn’t do nearly as much as it should.
“There’s no way a one-day count will get everyone,” he said. “It’s not like are going to line up because it’s count day; they appear at different times. But it’s devastating what’s going on, because (the state) is not addressing their needs. They need a place to rest their head at night and to start the process of recovery.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.