Rising homelessness bucks national trend

WASHINGTON — Chattanooga’s homeless population increased 55.3 percent from 2005 to 2007, even as the total U.S. homeless population appears to be decreasing, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

According to the report, which provided a nationwide assessment of homeless population figures, the 11-county area in Southeast Tennessee around Chattanooga saw an increase in homeless people from 685 in 2005 to 1,064 in 2007.

Statewide, Tennessee saw its homeless population increase 17.3 percent from 2006 to 2007, while the overall U.S. homeless population dropped 11.5 percent in that period to 671,888, the report states.

The HUD assessment is the first that tracks homeless populations across the nation over an entire year.

Karen Blevins, executive director of the Chattanooga Homeless Coalition, attributed the local rise mostly to better surveying in 2007.

“In 2005, we mainly counted in the downtown area, while in 2007, we went into the rural areas, so we got a much better picture,” she said.

Still, she said she expects the homeless population to continue to grow in the short term due to the struggling economy and said her agency has seen growing numbers of families using homeless services.

“With the number of foreclosures we’ve had, we’re seeing whole, intact families show up,” she said. “We’re seeing people staying in the homeless system longer, just due to the fact that they can’t get jobs with living wages.”

Chattanooga has 9.5 percent of the state’s homeless, according to the report.

Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, applauded the nationwide decline in the homeless population.

“After 20 years of reported increases, the (11.5 percent) national decrease reported by HUD ... is dramatic, and decreases in individual cities over the past several years are even more encouraging,” he said.

Population figures were gathered by a point-in-time survey of sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in hundreds of communities on a single night in January 2007 and compared to a similar count in 2006.

Some communities, however, including Chattanooga, conduct the point-in-time counts biannually, so Chattanooga’s reported figures are for 2005 and 2007.

Advocates said these surveys can undercount the number of homeless people because some may not want to be found.

John Dorris, a consultant to Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield on the city’s planned homeless services center, said the report and those compiled in subsequent years will provide valuable demographic information on local and national homeless populations that service providers can use to hone their programs.

“We’ve got to have our processes nailed down on how we’re connecting people to services and then doing the follow-up to make sure the services were helpful,” he said.

The mayor has proposed a controversial homeless services complex, named the Chattanooga Community Resource Center, on the site of the former Farmers’ Market downtown. Residents of nearby neighborhoods have protested the plan.

Mr. Dorris said the still-undeveloped center likely will include a central intake facility where homeless people can show up for services and, after an assessment, be directed by case workers to agencies that can meet their needs.

“That process, whether it’s put into play at the Farmers’ Market or at other locations, is important in collecting the data and confirming whether we’re headed in the right direction,” he said.