AUSTIN, Texas — Thousands of people continue to experience homelessness in Austin.
Advocates say the need among the growing population is for more permanent and supportive housing. New numbers show that need might be even greater than the City had thought.
ECHO is a local nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness in Austin. For years, ECHO has gathered volunteers to do the Point-in-Time Count. Volunteers count everyone who is sleeping outside. The one caveat about the count is that it is not always the most accurate.
"It's got its limits," said Akram Al-Turk, ECHO director of research and evaluation. "Like, you know, it's conducted mostly by volunteers, and ... it's not a days long thing. It's just one night. And so it's possible that we're missing folks."
When the pandemic hit, ECHO came up with a new way to track the population of people experiencing homelessness that is more effective than the Point-in-Time Count.
To get the new numbers, people experiencing homelessness fill out a questionnaire when receiving services across the city. Whether that be working with a case manager, staying in a shelter, or going to a community clinic for health care or food.
"We're relying on administrative data," Al-Turk added.
In 2020, ECHO had estimated the population of Austinites experiencing homelessness was around 3,000 people with the Point-in-Time Count. This year, with the nonprofit's new way to count, they now estimate that number to be around 4,500.
While the "old" way of counting might not be the most accurate, it does have its advantages – it helps City leaders understand where the homeless population is spread out. In previous years, the City has seen a large cluster of those experiencing homelessness are centered downtown.
"This year, we think that it's going to be a little bit different" Al-Turk said. "There's going to be more dispersion,"
Since Austin's camping ban started, more people have spread out of the City's center. This is in an effort to try and hide from law enforcement, and not get removed from the place they're set up. For ECHO, this makes it harder to count those people, in addition to connecting them to services because they are more hidden than before.