February 27, 2006 – At midnight tonight, thousands of volunteers from across the five boroughs will fan out to count the number of unsheltered individuals living on New York City’s streets, subways, parks, and other public spaces.  HOPE 2006, the City’s fourth annual homeless street count, will provide a benchmark to track progress towards Mayor Bloomberg’s five year goal of reducing the street homeless population by two-thirds by 2009.   

“By conducting the count each year, we are bringing public accountability to reducing the number of homeless people on the streets,” noted Department of Homeless Services Acting Commissioner Fran Winter.  “This year, for the first time, we’ll be able to compare the citywide results from last year to determine if there have been shifts in the size and location of the street homeless population.”

A record number of volunteers have registered for HOPE this year, demonstrating New Yorkers’ generosity toward those most in need.  Volunteers represent the diversity of the City and include: dozens of paramedics and emergency medical technicians, hundreds of college students, church groups, business leaders, social workers, employees from numerous city agencies, and several city council members. In addition, a special delegation of government officials from Toronto, Canada will also be taking part in the count this year in order to learn how to use New York City’s methodology – acknowledged by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a statistically valid model – to conduct their own homeless street count.

“The fact that thousands of people are willing to walk the streets on a very cold night is a powerful reminder that New Yorkers really care about their homeless neighbors and want to do something to help,” continued Acting Commissioner Fran Winter.  “The vital information collected by volunteers helps us continually improve our services to move people off the streets and into housing.”

The HOPE street survey is conducted from midnight until 4 a.m. on the last Monday in February every year to count the number of people who remain outside on the coldest winter nights.  These individuals are often among the most challenged in utilizing shelter services.  Volunteer teams use a brief screening questionnaire to determine if any individual they encounter is homeless and offer transportation to shelters or drop-in services for anyone who wants to come inside from the cold. 

Every area that has been identified as likely to have one or more homeless individuals is surveyed and a random sample of the remaining areas are counted.  As part of a quality assurance measure, 150 decoys are planted within the counting areas to gauge how effective the volunteer teams were in following the survey methodology.  The results of the street count produce a sound estimate of the street homeless population that can be tracked and analyzed from one year to the next.

Last year’s HOPE results were instrumental in shaping the recommendations of an advisory workgroup lead by the Department of Homeless Services and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Their recommendations included reconfiguring outreach services to individuals on the street with a strong focus on the creation of community “collaboratives.”  A collaborative is a community-based network that pools their resources and knowledge to help street homeless people into housing.  A community collaborative brings together various programs such as hospitals, drop in centers, soup kitchens, and churches, to share information and discuss how best to meet the special needs of a single client.  Over the last six months, community collaboratives have been launched in the Bronx, the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn.  Based on promising early results, the City and its outreach partners plan to expand the collaboratives to other neighborhoods.

Last year’s street survey found 4,395 individuals living unsheltered throughout the five boroughs.  The results of HOPE 2006 will be available online at www.nyc.gov/dhs in four to six weeks.