Title
Receive the 2019 Monterey County Homeless Census and Survey Report.
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors:
Receive and approve the 2019 Monterey County Homeless Census and Survey Report.
SUMMARY/ DISCUSSION:
Every two years during the last ten days of January, communities across the country conduct comprehensive counts of the local population experiencing homelessness. The biennial Point-in-Time Census Counts of sheltered and unsheltered persons are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for all jurisdictions receiving federal funding to provide homeless services for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Monterey County receives approximately $1.6 million in federal Continuum of Care (CoC) funding that supports homeless shelters, housing and service providers. This Census is also essential for the new funding provided by the State of California to address homelessness. The County of Monterey along with the Coalition of Homeless Services Providers funds this critical project for our community.
The 2019 Monterey County Point-in-Time Count was a community-wide effort conducted on January 31, 2019 - this effort includes a count of all individuals in shelters and transitional housing the night before, an early morning observational street count, a targeted count of unaccompanied homeless youth and young adults, and a count from the Monterey County Office of Education of unsheltered students and their families. Data from these efforts are carefully reviewed to assure duplicate counts are removed.
It is important to keep in mind that the Point-in-Time Census Count does not likely capture the complete extent of homelessness, given its reliance on a visual count of homeless individuals conducted by volunteers on a single morning during the last ten days of January and can be impacted by a number of uncontrollable variables such as weather. However, it is a consistent methodology man...
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