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Acting chair urges broader data sources after mixed homelessness signals
Summary
Acting Chair Mary Farrell told the Housing Stability Council that HUD point‑in‑time counts show declines while schools and Head Start report sharp increases, and asked the council to expand the data it watches to better understand family homelessness.
Acting Chair Mary Farrell opened the June 5 meeting by urging the council to widen the set of data it uses to track family homelessness.
"HUD's reporting that the data shows nearly a 19% decrease in family homelessness over the last 2 decades," Farrell said, then noted this trend conflicts with other sources: "public schools are reporting during the exact same period ... a 136% increase in homeless students" and Head Start shows a 37% increase. Farrell said the HUD point‑in‑time methodology excludes many families living doubled‑up, in motels, or otherwise hidden from the point‑in‑time count and asked staff to bring school and early‑childhood program data into the council’s monitoring.
Farrell warned that counting rules and policy choices (for example, changes in which program types are included in point‑in‑time counts) can distort apparent trends and said the council should press for a fuller picture before using headline numbers to guide policy. She urged tracking school district homeless enrollment and Head Start counts alongside HUD data so the council can ask harder questions when HUD numbers decline.
Director Bell acknowledged the discrepancy and described upcoming staff briefings; council members suggested policy options including consideration of an eviction moratorium timed to the school year. The council did not take an immediate action on data collection at the June 5 meeting; Farrell asked staff to return with recommendations on additional data sources and how to operationalize them.
