Press Room

March 19, 2010 – Today, New York City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) announced the results of its annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) street homeless survey. Based on information gathered from the survey, DHS estimates that 3,111 homeless individuals were living on the streets of New York City in January 2010. The 3,111 figure represents 783 more individuals over the 2009 number but 1,284 fewer than the street homeless population estimated in 2005, the first year that the HOPE survey was conducted—a 29 percent decrease. The ratio of street homeless individuals to the City’s population as a whole—1 in 2,688—remains one of the lowest of any major city in the country.

"These are challenging times that have had an impact on our street homeless population," said Homeless Services Commissioner Robert V. Hess. "Through the information gathered from the HOPE survey and a comprehensive needs assessment of the City’s street homeless population, DHS will enhance the work we have already done to place these clients into safe, stable housing. We will increase outreach efforts to the most vulnerable clients, expand the availability of alternatives to shelter, and undertake a variety of other strategies to ensure that no New Yorker has to spend a night on the streets."

The results of this year’s HOPE survey indicate that DHS could benefit from additional information to obtain a full understanding of the factors that contributed to the increase in the street homeless population and identify the best approaches to address them. That is why the agency is implementing a comprehensive assessment of the needs of our City’s street homeless population. By obtaining information on the location, demographic characteristics, and circumstances of street homeless individuals, DHS will be able to further tailor its programs and services to the needs of each client, as well as place more members of this population into permanent housing.

DHS will work with providers to interview a sample of street clients to better understand the increase in the street homeless population from 2009 to 2010. The agency and providers will use the interviews to ascertain information that includes clients’ former place of residence, their length of stay on the street, and what type of shelter or transitional housing they would be most likely to accept. Based on the results of this evaluation, DHS will implement solutions to best serve people living on the street. The agency will explore strategies that include encouraging homeless people to utilize short term shelter beds offered by faith-based providers, as well as developing additional low-threshold housing options and other services tailored to street clients’ needs as determined by the interview evaluations.

DHS will take additional steps to address the increase seen in this year’s HOPE survey by setting aside additional shelter beds that street homeless outreach teams will offer to street clients without requiring them to go through the intake process. By removing this barrier and increasing the number of beds, DHS hopes to facilitate shelter placements. The agency will also continue to focus on the chronically homeless—defined as those who have been living on the streets for seven and a half years or more— by expanding outreach efforts aimed at placing them into housing.

All of these efforts will build on the significant investments that have already been made in efforts aimed at encouraging homeless individuals to leave the streets and placing them in safe, permanent housing with a variety of social supports. DHS has 24/7 outreach efforts across all five boroughs where teams work to survey the boroughs for homeless individuals in need and work to place them into housing. A key focus of the DHS outreach initiatives have been the chronically homeless, and over 800 of those individuals were placed into permanent or transitional housing this past year alone. The needs assessment, expanded outreach initiatives, and other efforts described above are designed to help ensure that DHS is even better equipped to meet the needs of the City’s street homeless population in 2010 and beyond.

The City’s methodology for estimating the size of the street homeless population through the HOPE survey has been recognized by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a national model. The methodology helps to ensure accuracy by employing decoys, who are individuals trained to appear homeless and placed throughout the City the night of the count to test whether survey volunteers are thoroughly covering their assigned areas. The number of street homeless individuals counted by volunteers is adjusted on the basis of how many decoys were not identified, a procedure which serves as a quality assurance measure. Similar to past years, 90 percent of the decoys were identified in 2010, confirming the accuracy of the count.