A small group of volunteers clamored through the woods across from Red Bank Elementary School in the cold of a Thursday night, flashlights in hand, as they helped the city with its annual Point-in-Time Count of the Chattanooga area’s homeless population.
The federally mandated count helps governments ensure the voices of people experiencing homelessness in the community are heard and efforts are made to provide appropriate services, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which requires the study in every community nationwide receiving federal funds from its grant program.
Helping the homeless has been a major part of Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke’s agenda since he took office in 2013. Last month, he announced the assembly of housing navigators to help people find places to live as the city’s first step in a new, comprehensive plan to combat homelessness.
This year’s data will be gathered in the coming weeks and must be submitted in March. The total homeless population after last year’s count was 623, compared to 576 the previous year. Representatives with the city’s homeless coalition believe that may in part be due to improved search methods. However, they were concerned about the increased chronic population – those who have been homeless for more than a year – which increased to 322 in 2018 from 192 in 2017.
“That is an increase of 130 chronically homeless people in only one year,” Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition Executive Director Wendy Winters wrote in an email. “It will be interesting to find out what this year’s number will be.”