Method for Counting the Homeless is Fatally Flawed

I found this article when looking through some published articles by the Toronto City Council that I thought was interesting when looking at scale with Toronto's homeless situation. It was published June 29th 2005 by: Michael Shapcott at the Centre for Urban and Community Studies at the University of Toronto. The link is www.tdrc.net/tostreetcount2005.pdf.

"Counting cars on the Don Valley Parkway: Imagine sending a handful of people with clipboards onto the Don Valley Parkway to count the number of vehicles, and passengers, as a method of understanding the scale of Toronto’s transportation and transit issues. The large pile of numbers would be interesting, but not particularly useful in understanding the scale of the problem. The DVP is only one part of the city’s transportation system. Depending on the time of day, and the acuity of the counters, the numbers may – or may not – reflect anything more than a momentary snapshot.

That’s the central problem with the “point-in-time count on one evening / night in November” homeless count proposed in the June 14, 2005, report to Community Services Committee titled “Determining the Number and Service Needs of Homeless Persons Living on Toronto’s Streets and in its Public Spaces”. At best, it will provide a momentary snapshot, and that snapshot will likely not be very useful in determining the scale of Toronto’s homelessness disaster.

The staff report raises significant questions:

WHY NOVEMBER? The late fall date appears to be drawn from a false perception that street homelessness is more damaging to individuals in the winter than the summer. A recent report from Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health reports that, in the general population, heat-related premature deaths have been significantly higher than cold-related premature deaths. Since epidemiological studies show that homeless people have much higher morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) rates than the general population, the trend noted by the Medical Officer of Health means that homeless people are suffering mightily during Toronto’s almost continual heat and smog alerts. Why count in November and not, say, in June – or February, for that matter.

WHY IGNORE THE “HIDDEN HOMELESS”: The staff report notes that the single largest group of homeless people in Toronto – the “hidden homeless” (which includes “couch-surfers”, individuals and families living in short-term arrangements with friends or family and other insecure arrangements) – will NOT be counted by the street count. Homeless studies in communities such as Peterborough and Sudbury have estimated that for every person in a shelter or on the streets, there are three to four “hidden homeless” people.

WHY UNDERCOUNT THE HOMELESS: The staff report confirms that a standard flaw reported from homeless counts in other cities is that all the various methodologies significantly undercount the number of homeless people. There are many reasons for this undercounting, but the two most important are problems with the methodology of the counting, and the “invisibility” of homeless people.

Problems with methodology: The homeless counts surveyed in the staff report show a wide range of results. For instance, Edmonton’s homeless count reports more homeless people than Vancouver – even though the Vancouver CMA is twice as large as Edmonton. Are there actually more homeless people in Edmonton than Vancouver, or is the methodology flawed? No one can say for sure.

‘Invisibility” of homeless people: A more serious issue, considering the point-and-count strategy proposed by city staff, is the difficulty in finding and counting homeless people. People who are homeless, especially those who have been on or close to the streets for any period of time, adopt a deliberate strategy of remaining invisible to avoid detection by police or civic authorities. The decision by Toronto City Council to drive homeless people from Nathan Phillips Square and other public spaces in February has added to this
problem. Street outreach workers report that it is increasingly difficult to maintain contact with homeless clients. This survival strategy means that it will be almost impossible for the city to accurately assess the number of homeless people.

WHY EVEN BOTHER TO MAKE THE COUNT: The staff report correctly notes that there is “no single consistent approach to determining the number and service needs of homeless people on the street and in public spaces”. Dr. J. David Hulchanski, the leading Canadian research on housing and homelessness, has written:

“We need to concede that all attempts at counting the houseless are doomed to failure, thanks to insurmountable methodological problems. There are too many who do not want to be counted, too many places where the houseless can find a place to stay for a night, and no method at all for counting those in the ‘concealed houseless’ category. In addition, attempts to count are never provided enough resources to produce a somewhat defensible number.”