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///FADE Up MB of training room////
NARR (:08)
Around 10:30 PM, volunteers packed a school cafeteria in Washington Heights. A trainer from DHS explained how the agency created the maps volunteers would use to find and count homeless people.
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////FADE Up MB of training room////
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(Trainer, Carl) …We've asked people in every neighborhood as well as social services agencies like ours to mark the areas where homeless people tend to congregate…
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////Fade under MB of training room////
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Across the city, hundreds of teams of three or four volunteers each prepared to canvass areas of several city blocks. Team leader Leona Ray coached team 128C on her strategy for the night.
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(LEOINA RAY) OK this is the survey, this is the questions we're going to ask the people that we come across in the street …///FADE DOWN///
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The team decided one person would approach people on the street and ask questions, another would hold the clipboard and write the person's answers to a short survey, while a third would navigate using DHS' laminated map.
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///FADE UP//// Everybody ready? Sound of feet on stairs…///
NARR (:03)
Around midnight, they headed to their tiny slice of the city to begin counting.
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///FADE UP/// Sound of people getting out of car… OK, we're at 122nd and Clermont…////
NARR (:04)
Near a hundred and twenty second at Broadway, a man pushing a shopping cart overflowing with cans and bottles approached the team.
SCENE (:33)
Mark: Yes, we're with New York City, we're volunteers.
MAN: Ya'll counting people?
MARK: Yes we are…You have an apartment? Where do you normally sleep? You sleep in a tunnel? …
YESSICA: Would you be interested in going to a shelter today?
MAN: No, absolutely not. Listen, let me tell you something, you should already know this. The shelters are worse than being on the street….
MARK: Ok. Well, you have a good night...
MAN: You too.
NARR (:07)
Volunteer Mark Hurwitz manages shelter services from DHS headquarters. Hurwitz says his office often hears complaints about the shelters, but it's difficult to tell what the real problems are.
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(Mark Hurwitz) And it's hard to tell whether the reasons people state are the only reasons. All we can do is listen to people and try to make improvements in the shelter system.
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That's why accuracy is critical. Hurwitz says DHS will use the data to assess the need for additional outreach programs. Martha Burt is an expert on homelessness at the Urban Institute. She says a count can set also help set a baseline for social service agencies to use when they seek funding.
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(Martha Burt) We tend to want to know what's the size of the problem, what's the size of it, is it really a problem, before we're willing to do anything about it, so counting is one of the things we do tell ourselves that.
NARR (:07)
But Burt says the city's survey method…all in one night, in as many places as possible… may not provide the most accurate count. She says another way to do it is to go to organizations that provide services to homeless people.
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(Martha Burt)….And ask everybody there about their homelessness and you can do that over a longer period of time. You're much more likely to find the people who are relatively rare service users and who are not in places where they would be seen.
NARR (:19)
And finding them takes some knowledge of where the homeless go, especially in winter when it's too cold to bunk in the usual places. Paige Sayle represents Partnership for the Homeless. She says the city could take better advantage of organizations like hers that work with the homeless every day.
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(Paige Sayle) The thing that's always been rather puzzling to us since the count started 2 years ago is that outreach teams throughout the city really understand the clients and have a working relationship with the clients that are living on the street in a much different and much stronger way than volunteers potentially would.
NARR (:04)
For example, Sayle says volunteers may not be prepared to deal with some of the more severe issues they could face on the street.
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(Paige Sayle) …When they're actually trying to figure out whether or not somebody actually is homeless, or if they've determined that somebody is homeless who might have a mental health issue or might potentially be intoxicated, or if there's some other type of issue that person is facing, these volunteers aren't necessarily trained to be able to deal with that.
NARR (:10)
At about two in the morning, team 128C finished the last stretch of 125th street and headed back to turn in the completed surveys.
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///FADE UP/// Sounds of getting into car, buckling up…
NARR (:04)
While he drove a sleepy team back to Washington Heights, volunteer Mark Hurwitz wondered whether he'd helped the man on Broadway who refused shelter.
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(Mark Hurwitz) That was interesting that I think that guy, didn't he say he was counted last year too? I wonder if that's comforting to him in some way. (His response?) No. That he's being counted.
NARR ( :09)
The overnight survey results won't be available for several weeks. But in the meantime, Paige Sayle of Partnership for the Homeless says it's important to remember that the count alone will not solve a growing problem.
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(Paige Sayle) The biggest, biggest piece of all of this is whatever the numbers reflect, the reality is they're not going to get any smaller, they're going to increase…
NARR (:09)
But the count may help. The federal government will consider the numbers when allocating funds to prevent homelessness. I'm Kristin Espeland, Columbia Radio News.