According to the Jacksonville Community Council, the homeless population has increased by 16 percent since 2011.  According to statistics from the Duval County and Homeless Coalition, there were 20,417 homeless people in Jacksonville in 2005. It found the overall homeless population has increased 11.2% in a year. It seems more of the homeless these days are women and children. On any given day in Jacksonville, there are 832 homeless adult women and 322 homeless children.

 

 

written by Sam Batko

 

How many chronically homeless individuals are there in your state? Has that number increased or decreased over the last few years? If your state is anything like the overall U.S., then the number of chronically homelessness individuals in your community should be shrinking.

From 2011 to 2012, chronic homelessness decreased 7 percent. In fact, chronic homelessness has been decreasing for several years. From 2007 to 2012, chronic homelessness in the U.S. has decreased 19 percent from 123,833 people to 99,894 people.

Is your state keeping up with that pace? Some communities are!  According to the Alliance's State of Homelessness in America 2013, chronic homelessness decreased in 29 states and the District of Columbia from 2011 to 2012. Many states even saw large double-digit decreases, including Louisiana, Michigan, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Maryland.

Unfortunately the news is not all good. While chronic homelessness is going down, the rate of decrease is not fast enough to achieve the U.S. government’s goal of ending chronic homelessness by the end of 2015. The Alliance has just released a Data Point brief that details how many chronically homeless people would need to be housed every year between now and the 2016 point-in-time count to meet the goal: almost 25,000 individuals each year. It is achievable, but it will take continued investment in and proper targeting of permanent supportive housing.