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Kentucky groups are counting the number of people experiencing homelessness. What is that data used for?

A man sits at an intersection in downtown Louisville with a sign asking for help.
J. Tyler Franklin
/
LPM
A man sits at an intersection in downtown Louisville with a sign asking for help.

Groups across Kentucky are taking part this week in an annual effort to estimate the number of people currently experiencing homelessness in the Commonwealth.

Groups are going into communities in around three-quarters of Kentucky’s 120 counties on Jan. 29 to conduct point-in-time (PIT) counts – also referred to as K-Counts in the Bluegrass State – and surveying people who are unhoused or living in other qualifying emergency situations on where they will be sleeping that night.

The Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC) oversees the annual Balance of State K-Count effort, which includes all of the Bluegrass State’s counties outside of Jefferson and Fayette counties. Both of those locales coordinate their own annual counts and give their data to KHC.

Shaye Rabold, KHC’s Continuum of Care planning and technical administrator, said PIT counts give estimates of how many people are experiencing a specific type of homelessness on a given night.

“It helps us be able to know what type of resources we need. It also helps us to know where we might be having some success and areas where we need improvement,” Rabold said. “And it helps local leaders, as well as state leaders all the way up to the federal government, understand the scope and scale of homelessness in various communities.”

In order to qualify for federal grant funding from the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development, the agency requires designated Continuum of Care programs (agencies or nonprofits focused on ending homelessness in their communities) to conduct an annual PIT count of people experiencing homelessness.

The count includes unsheltered people as well as those living in emergency shelters, seasonal or white-flag shelters, transitional housing geared toward homeless people or those staying in hotels or motels paid for by nonprofits or government agencies.

KHC enlists the help of local organizations to conduct surveys in communities with people they encounter outside on the night of the K-Count. Those volunteers then ask those people if they want to answer questions about their housing situation. Questions on that survey include asking about people’s personal experiences and where they are sleeping on the night of the K-Count.

Rabold said if the people surveyed say they are sleeping outside or in an emergency shelter, then the surveyors continue to ask questions about how long they’ve experienced homelessness, as well as their employment status and other demographic information.

She said it’s about more than getting numbers on homelessness throughout Kentucky.

“The data that we're collecting, it's not a matter of just driving around and seeing someone you think is homeless and marking a little check mark on a notepad and keeping going. Actually, the intent is to engage with the individual,” Rabold said.

The Salvation Army of Paducah is one of the groups helping with KHC’s PIT count efforts this year. Benny Carringer, one of that chapter’s captains, said the agency is taking the opportunity to bring extra resources to people in McCracken County experiencing homelessness.

“With the feeding unit going to those different locations, it is allowing us to provide them with food physically. And then we have some hygiene bags from the health department,” Carringer said. “And some just essential necessities that they may need to help them.”

More than 5,200 Kentuckians were documented as experiencing homelessness last year, according to 2024 K-Count data. That’s up from the 2023 numbers, which found that 4,766 Kentuckians were experiencing homelessness.

There are some limitations to this method. Rabold said there are some people experiencing homelessness who may not want to be found, or who may not feel safe engaging with people conducting the K-Counts. There are also people in unstable housing situations – like couch-surfing, temporarily staying in hotels on their own dime or living in households that are “doubled-up” (situations like adult children living at home or two or more families living together in one home) – who are not counted in the PIT counts.

However, Rabold said that HUD recognizes PIT count numbers as estimates of homelessness in communities where they’re conducted. She said having these numbers can help agencies and programs evaluate how they are addressing homelessness in their communities, and whether there are any new strategies that need to be implemented – such as programs specifically for unhoused veterans or shelters for underserved demographics.

“And then, you can go to your various partners in your community … and have data before you to discuss, as opposed to just making assumptions about what the needs of the community are, without any data behind that,” Rabold said.

Ultimately, Rabold said the goal is to see PIT count numbers go down. She said that seeing a decrease in the number of people experiencing homelessness would show that organizations are making progress toward addressing the issue.

Hannah Saad is the Assistant News Director for WKMS. Originally from Michigan, Hannah earned her bachelor’s degree in news media from The University of Alabama in 2021. Hannah moved to western Kentucky in the summer of 2021 to start the next chapter of her life after graduation. Prior to joining WKMS in March 2023, Hannah was a news reporter at The Paducah Sun. Her goal at WKMS is to share the stories of the region from those who call it home. Outside of work, Hannah enjoys exploring local restaurants, sports photography, painting, and spending time with her fiancé and two dogs.
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