In the past few weeks, we have met with a slew of community experts on homelessness. Largely people on the front lines working with the homeless, advocacy, and data collection. A common thread amongst all these experts is that they are involved in local, isolated efforts. Short of the national effort to house homeless veterans under the Obama administration, there seems to be little being done nationally that is noteworthy. Nothing has come close to meeting the needs of the existing population or effectively begun to address the systemic drivers of homelessness. This observation is likely influenced by the fact that we can only meet those who are near, available over the phone, and are willing to donate their time.

Despite this, I’ve been unimpressed by the national efforts that we’ve read about. The issue seems to be the responsibility of the city or county at best. Even the HUD requirement to do homeless counts every two years fails to provide counties with guidelines that create useful data nationally. Many of the trends in the national data can be chalked up to issues with disparate methodology. I question whether this is a symptom of historical views of the homeless. People began to see homelessness as a personal failing starting in the late 70’s. Is homelessness not being addressed on an effective level nationally because of our cultural views of the homeless?

Would better data collection drive more appropriate action? Is there any precedent to suggest that having reliable data drives action on the national level? Some of the best homeless counts are conducted by Applied Survey Research (ASR). What does it cost to perform a count of this caliber? Would that amount pose a financial burden to a significant number of counties?