Since 2001 the Homeless Services Planning and coordinating Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) has conducted a regional enumeration of the homeless population.

On January 25, 2007, the seventh annual regional count of the homeless was conducted. This report tracks the number of people found on the streets, in emergency shelters, in transitional and permanent supportive housing, or otherwise homeless and in need of a safe shelter. These data represent persons served by what is commonly called the “Continuum of Care (CoC), which refers to three competitively-funded U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs based on the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. The enumeration is a one day point-in-time snap shot of persons served by the nine jurisdictions in the metropolitan Washington region that have received HUD grants through the Continuum of Care for the homeless.

The jurisdictions who participated in the survey were in Virginia: Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax County (includes Falls Church and the City of Fairfax), Loudoun County and Prince William County (includes the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park); in Maryland: Frederick County, Montgomery County and Prince George’s County (includes the City of Bowie); and the District of Columbia. For the first time, the homeless enumeration report contains brief reports prepared by each of the participating jurisdictions. These jurisdictional reports provide brief descriptions of each jurisdiction’s homeless CoC and a more detailed explanation of their respective survey results (see pages 22-42.)