Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Tribune article on the Homeless Count:
Politics
Volunteers take to streets for Hillsborough’s annual homeless count
By Keith Morelli | Tribune Staff
Published: February 26, 2015 | Updated: February 27, 2015 at 05:51 AM
TAMPA — Mark Francis Price, dressed in raggedy shorts, a dirty jacket and knit cap pulled down tightly over his forehead, had no problem talking with Stephen Taylor, a red-shirted volunteer who was asking some pretty personal questions Thursday morning.
Date of birth, Social Security number, names of relatives, marital status all were written down by Taylor as the two stood on the muddy corner of Saxon and South 22nd streets near Port Tampa Bay.
Price, 53, said he had been homeless for about five years.
“Ain’t nobody wants me,” he said, with the guarded grin of a man who saw some secret humor in his situation.
Similar scenes played out across Hillsborough County all day Thursday as some 300 volunteers armed with pens and clipboards fanned out around the region, counting, one by one and face to face, people without homes in the annual Point in Time Homeless Count.
The counting began before dawn and was expected to conclude late Thursday. It’s an attempt to get a handle on how many homeless people call the streets of Hillsborough County home and to break down the numbers to find out how many are men, women, families, veterans and juveniles.
Taylor, who works with Humana insurance, said his company encourages employees to do volunteer public service. This, he said, was his choice.
“I like it,” he said between interviews. “It gives you a good perspective of something you don’t really see.”
The counters worked in shifts and in assigned zones. Some homeless were found under bridges in Plant City, others beneath building overhangs in Brandon. Some were counted in campsites and woods of the University area, at lunch sites and in shelters and transitional housing programs.
A group of volunteers worked downtown from the Marion Street bus station to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park to the Florida Aquarium to Palmetto Beach just east of the port.
Among those counted and interviewed was Jon Clark, 53, who came here from Illinois last year to work. Things went bad and he became homeless three months after arriving.
He’s been staying downtown and in other areas of the city since. He wants to be close to the downtown library when it opens on weekday mornings so he can go in and look for employment on the computers.
“I’m unable to get work,” he said, sitting with two other homeless men in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. “I’m looking everywhere.”
He and others don’t care for shelters, he said, adding he feels safer under the stars and on the streets.
The information collected in the survey will be used to create and carry out strategies to get people off the street and into temporary and then permanent housing. The count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of its funding process.
The federal government typically awards about $6 million in grant money to Hillsborough County each year to help deal with homeless issues. Over the past few years, the strategy has changed from first offering services, such as counseling and job training, to getting homeless people into housing first and then providing services to help them stabilize their lives.
One reason: It’s cheaper for taxpayers and seems to be an effective way to reduce the numbers.
The alternative is the public paying for emergency room treatment of the homeless for injuries they get or illnesses they contract on the street. It’s also cheaper than jail, said Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandra Murman. A jail stint costs taxpayers $101 a day per inmate, she said, and homeless people typically are there for extended periods for minor, non-violent crimes.
Murman participated in Thursday’s count, traipsing around downtown with a group of about seven red-shirted volunteers.
“We want to do away with chronic homelessness, among veterans, single males and females,” she said, and the county has taken the initiative over the past few years to mount a concerted effort to solve the problem.
“The county has made substantial investments,” she said, and the commission has allocated more than $7 million to the cause.
“We’re hopeful that we will soon start to see results,” she said. “We want the homeless to know we really care about them.”
The Point in Time Homeless Count is coordinated by the Tampa Hillsborough Homeless Initiative. This is the first count for CEO Antoinette D. Hayes Triplett, who was hired in August.
No major changes were made in the methodology of the count this year, she said.
“I’ve only been here a few months,” she said. “I don’t want to rock the boat too much.”
She said she’s hoping to see a reduction from last year’s totals because of programs implemented recently, but the real cut in numbers should come next year when new programs put into place in December, including a push to get homeless veterans off the streets, take hold, she said.
Though homelessness likely never will be eliminated, as people are evicted and lose their homes for various reasons all the time, the goal is to have programs in place that can immediately put those people into transitional housing and then permanent housing.
Tom Snelling usually is in his office at Tampa City Hall crunching numbers as the city’s director of planning and development, but Thursday morning, he helped count homeless people downtown. A walk through the Channelside District with other volunteers came up empty, but several were counted and surveyed around the Marion Street bus station, he said.
“There’s shelter there,” he said, “and vending machines. There are people moving in and out, so it’s safe, too.”
Homeless advocates estimate there are more than 2,200 homeless people on any given night in Hillsborough County. Last year’s count totaled 2,243 homeless people.
Data from Thursday’s count will be compiled and made available by the end of April.
