More than 2,500 Volunteers Needed For HOPE 2007

Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Commissioner Robert V. Hess today announced that the fifth annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE 2007) – a survey of all individuals living on city streets, will be held on the night of Monday, January 29, 2007.  HOPE 2007 is part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s “Uniting for Solutions Beyond Shelter,” a five-year action plan to end chronic homelessness.  HOPE is critical to helping evaluate the effectiveness of current strategies to overcome street homelessness as well as developing appropriate housing resources for the most vulnerable New Yorkers currently living without shelter. 

“It’s not acceptable that nearly 4,000 of our fellow New Yorkers are living on the streets,” said DHS Commissioner Hess. “One way concerned citizens can help right now is by calling 311 and volunteering one night to help estimate the size of the street homeless population. But HOPE is not just about counting people or adding up numbers; HOPE is about reaching out to those men and women who most need our help.” 

More than 2,500 volunteers are needed to canvass the city to count the number of individuals who are living unsheltered on the streets, in parks, and in other public spaces. 

On the night of the count, volunteers will meet at 10:30 p.m. on Monday, January 29, 2007 at training sites located throughout the five boroughs.  After a brief orientation and training, teams will disperse to count homeless individuals in assigned geographic areas from midnight until 4 a.m. Last year volunteers walked a total of 8,101 miles and surveyed more than 1,000 subway cars. 

In addition, “decoys” or trained individuals posing as homeless individuals will be planted as a quality assurance measure.  This shadow count helps to gauge the accuracy of the total estimate and allows DHS to adjust our final count estimate accordingly.  This will be the third year HOPE has included a shadow count.

Although HOPE 2007 will take place a month earlier than in previous years, it will still employ the same methodology used in earlier counts. The City’s methodology for estimating the size of the street homeless population has been acknowledged by the federal Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) as the “HUD standard” for statistically valid methodologies.  Volunteer teams will canvass all areas identified to likely have street homeless individuals. In addition, a random sample of those areas not identified as likely to have street homeless individuals will also be canvassed.

Following four years of HOPE, DHS has continually strived to improve outreach services to those living on the streets in order to convince them to accept services. One strategy that has yielded promising results is Housing First, which offers homeless clients housing from the beginning of service engagement. Additionally, as Mayor Bloomberg promised in his five year action plan, the City is fulfilling its promise to build more supportive housing units that will be directly targeted to chronically street homeless individuals. The New York/New York agreement signed by Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg last year dedicated $1 billion to build 9,000 new units of supportive housing.