According to an examination of data from Denton County Independent School Districts and the Denton County Homeless Coalition, the overall accuracy of Point in Time homeless counts run by the DCHC corresponds with ISD homeless population trends.
The Denton County Homeless Coalition Point in Time count is an annual count taken over one night that falls within the last 10 days of January. During that night volunteers canvas the county, checking in at local shelters and known locations where the homeless tend to gather to find and survey as many homeless people as they can. While this does not give a completely accurate count of every homeless person, it gives agencies an idea of the trends in homeless population over time.
With the exception of the data from 2015, each data set followed the same trend. The ISD count increased by 58 percent and the Point in Time count increased by 39 percent from 2013 to 2014. The only disparity in the five years of data shown here was from 2014 to 2015 when the Point in Time count decreased by 2 percent and the ISD count increased by 23 percent. They both decreased from 2015 to 2016, the ISD count by 64 percent and the Point in Time count by 27 percent. From 2017 to 2018 they both increased, the ISD numbers by 37 percent and the Point in Time numbers by 12 percent. These comparisons do not include data about homelessness in Denton County schools in 2016.
“People experiencing homelessness tend to be more transient due to the lack of a fixed permanent address,” says Denton County Homeless Coalition Volunteer. “This alone creates daily fluctuations in people experiencing homelessness in the county not just during the count. The weather on the day of the count can have an impact on who is counted and where. For these reasons, it is good to reflect on the trends in what is collected during the count rather than just the number.”
With 1,834 students considered homeless in Denton County in the 2017-2018 school year and only 255 persons counted in the 2018 Point in Time count, it may seem the Point in Time count does not capture the full extent of homelessness. There are several reasons behind this disparity, such as the ISD info being gathered over the course of a year rather than on one night, and different standards for what constitutes homelessness in each data source. However, the correlation with the ISD data shows that the Point in Time count accurately captures the trends of homelessness in Denton County, allowing support groups to change their strategies as needed.
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