Homeless Coalition presents Point in Time count to court

SAN MARCOS   — The Hays County Commissioners Court received a presentation from the Hays County Homeless Coalition at its April 23 meeting, with data from the organizarion 2024 Point in Time count.

The Hays County Homeless Coalition is an “organization of organizations” that is attempting to make homelessness “brief, rare and nonrecurring as much as possible,” explained co-chair Josh Sutherlun. The Point in Time count is an annual count of the homeless population on one day a year, including those who are sheltered and unsheltered. This year, it occurred in January. The number, which results from the count, aids the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to determine how much access the county needs to funding.

Sutherlun stated that there are four categories of unhoused individuals. The first is hidden or invisible, which he said are those that are difficult to recognize, whether this be because they are sleeping in their cars or couch surfing. Transitional is the second, where individuals have no safety net, are constantly moving from one place to another or have perhaps lost their job and can no longer afford housing. They are in between phases. Episodic follows and categorizes those who have “experienced homelessness multiple times within a year.”

“It is a critical stage to intervene because they are the most likely [for it] to become something that is a chronic condition for them,” explained Sutherlun.

Finally, the chronic stage is “the people [society] really think of as the homeless” or in other words, the “stereotype.” These are individuals who typically have a mental illness or substance use disorder and have been homeless for at least 12 months or have experienced four separate occasions in the past three years.

This year, there were 99 individuals unsheltered and 111 in shelters. Of those sheltered, more than 50 were below the age of 18.

According to co-chair Nancy Hines, Hays County has participated in the count since 2020 and compared to previous years, the number of those in shelters has decreased and the organization was unable to safely engage with more individuals who were unsheltered than in previous year.

“The reason we show the [number of how many we observed] is because those are part of the unsheltered. [There were] 36, which means there were people that, for one reason or another, unsafe to approach to do the survey or they weren’t willing to do the survey,” said Hines.

Hines noted that the teams were able to be more effective during its count this year due to a map created by Stephanie Brown, which highlighted areas where the homeless population may be found.

The demographics of each location affect where the team looked in each city. According to Hines, Dripping Springs was not included because at the time of the count, they were unable to locate those individuals, but this does not mean they are not present. Constables and residents were spoken to and confirmed that there is a population, but they are “car sleepers,” so unless the team visited early in the morning or late in the evening in the transition time, they would be missed. Unfortunately, the coalition did not have the capacity to have teams out at those hours this year.

Brown stated that some of the help comes from the community when doing the count, as they find out information on where to look by word of mouth. In Wimberley, individuals were found sleeping in parks, while Buda residents gave specific locations where they had witnessed homelessness. Hines stated that in Kyle, there was evidence of encampments, but they did not find any official ones within the city, as the locations were in the outskirts.

During the survey in San Marcos, many individuals housed in shelters stated that they were moved to the city by law enforcement elsewhere.

“For the sake of conversation, it’s very important [that] we do include the school districts and what they are dealing with,” said Hines.

This comes after commissioner Walt Smith confirmed that he has received phone calls before about high school students living in vehicles and at their jobs. Stephanie Norris of Hays CISD is on the coalition board and has been working with all three school districts to collect and contribute data about these situations. In fact, Hines stated that Hays CISD confirmed that more families than ever are residing in motels this year.

“That’s something that cannot be ignored,” emphasized the co-chair.

Sutherlun explained that it is important to understand that the count does not include every individual, only those that were found on the day of the count.

“The other thing you don’t get to know is how many people are on the verge of eviction [or] people who are transitioning. People who were homeless yesterday and not homeless today because something happened,” said Sutherlun. “Those things are not going to be found in the count.”

According to the presentation, several studies found that compared with the treatment-first model, housing- first approaches offer greater long term housing stability, especially among people experiencing chronic homelessness.

“If you look at homelessness nationally, HUD years ago determined that housing needed to happen first. Housing doesn’t happen after somebody gets clean or they get mentally stable, it happens at the same time.” said Hines “Just know that none of those housing models are free. They’re expected to contribute because these people are on [supplemental security income] or [social security disability insurance] or have some sort of financial support, so they contribute a portion of that. So, we’re not just talking about just giving people free housing, they're invested in it and that’s a part of it. That’s a part of the dignified way that this program is to empower people to know that they can do it, they just need a little bit more support.”

Now, the coalition is attempting to build conversation within the community to participate in round table sessions with leadership to assess resources required to prevent and end homelessness in Hays County.

“We are at a point where your numbers are not unmanageably large, but it takes a lot,” Hines said.” Now getting out in front of that, ‘What resources are we missing.’ ‘What are the gaps in the resources across the county?’”

The coalition meets every second Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church in San Marcos, located at 410 W. Hutchison St.

“We are so grateful as a community to have your support and your passion behind this effort. The way you present it, it is something we can actually make a meaningful impact and I’m most grateful for the optimism in that space,” concluded Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra.

To listen to the full presentation, visit www.hayscountytx.com/commissioners-court/court-video.