Point-In-Time Count 2011

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires counts of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons for those communities interested in applying for McKinney-Vento funding through the Continuum of Care (CoC) application process at least every two years – 2011 is a mandatory PIT Count year. However, collecting data on the the numbers and characteristics of homeless individuals and families can serve additional purposes over and beyond meeting HUD and OHCP's requirements. An accurate count offers several benefits including:

• Providing support for local planning efforts by identifying unmet needs and trends in size and characteristics of homeless populations.
• Supplying guidance for development of more effective programming and services,
• Raising awareness of homelessness,
• Assisting with allocation of resources to local priorities,
• Targeting interventions for certain homeless sub-populations, and
• Identifying community goals, and
• Assisting in measuring progress toward homelessness reduction goals.

Communities applying for HUD's CoC funding are required to produce statistically reliable, unduplicated counts or estimates of homeless persons in sheltered and unsheltered locations at a one-day point in time. Moreover, these counts must be conducted at least every two years during the last seven days of January. Generally, this process of counting homeless persons for a one-day period is called a point-in-time (PIT) count.