AUSTIN, Texas — Concerns circling COVID-19 have again canceled the annual point-in-time count for Austin's homeless population, according to a report from KVUE's news partners at the Austin American-Statesman.
ECHO, also known as the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, called off this year's count after a recent vote by a council of Austin homelessness response officials and City employees.
The annual count takes place to get an estimate of how many people across Austin are experiencing homelessness, to gauge the problem of homelessness and to assess Austin's progress in addressing it. Not only does this year's cancelation hinder that, but it also limits the opportunity for members of the homeless population to engage with volunteers to learn about services that could be available to them.
These counts are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) every year to determine federal funding under its Continuum of Care program. Last year, the government waived the point-in-time count due to the pandemic. This year, ECHO reported that it is not required to conduct an in-person count and will again rely on alternative methods.
Austin is currently in Stage 5 of its COVID-19 risk-based guidelines amid a surge credited to the omicron variant. According to the Statesman's report, postponing the count until a later time in the year is not an option due to the fact that HUD requires the count to be conducted in January.
To read the Statesman's full report, click here.
ECHO provided KVUE the following statement Thursday afternoon:
"Due to the ongoing health risks COVID-19 poses to our community – and especially to our neighbors experiencing homelessness – the Leadership Council for the Austin/Travis County Homelessness Response System voted not to hold an in-person PIT Count in 2022. (Leadership Council is independent from ECHO and consists of people with lived experience of homelessness, equity advocates, service providers, and local government representatives.) ECHO supports any decision that prioritizes the health and wellbeing of the people we serve, but we do not speak for Leadership Council...
"Our community continues to track needs and demographics of the population we serve on a given day through the HMIS Snapshot that ECHO’s Research & Evaluation Team developed for the 2021 count we submitted to HUD. This information, pulled monthly rather than yearly from our person-level database, is available to the public on the Homelessness Response System dashboard. The Snapshot and the PIT Count are not interchangeable datasets, however, and we look forward to a time when we can again gather safely in person to meet people experiencing homelessness where they are.
"Instead of an in-person PIT Count, our network of providers will join forces this month to engage our community once more in the Week of Action to Support Ending Homelessness. Providers are working now to finalize the simple actions we’ll be asking community members to take in the last few days of January to improve people’s lives and contribute to our system-wide effort to provide housing and supportive services to everyone who needs them. More information will be available in the coming days and weeks."
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