Maine’s 2017 Homeless Youth Count Introductions

What is the PIT? The Point-in-Time (PIT) count is an imperfect count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons on a single night in January. HUD requires that Continuums of Care conduct an annual count of homeless persons who are sheltered in emergency shelter, transitional housing, and Safe Havens on a single night. **This planning process is focused on planning, finding, and counting those people who are homeless and unsheltered on the night of the count.**

Planning and Organization Chain of Command Maine Continuum of Care (MCoC) Maine Housing – Collaborative Applicant Resource Committee of the MCoC PIT Crew Outreach Leads Homeless Youth Providers Volunteers

Community Planning/Counting Response This is both a top/down (statewide), as well as a bottom/up planning process (local). While Outreach Leads are responsible for the overall coordination of all PIT count planning in their areas, they do not necessarily need to do all the work. Tasks can be delegated to others. At this stage, the focus is on the local level. Here are some considerations: What size community are you in? How much community involvement do you have? What are your volunteers and providers willing to do? What resources do you/your community have access to?

PIT Count Definitions Literally Homeless: “An individual or family with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, a park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport or camping ground.” Night of Count: This method is a count of people who are unsheltered in the night designated for the count. The “night of count” begins at sunset on the date of the count and ends at sunrise on the following day. Service-Based Count: a method of conduction interviews with users of non-shelter services and locations frequented by people who are homeless. When you do a service-based count, you are still asking about a person’s housing status/homelessness on the date identified for the night of count.

Homeless Youth Definition The term “homeless children and youth”— (A) means individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence …; and (B) includes— (i) children and youths who are sharing housing are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement; (ii) children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings … (iii) children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and (iv) migratory children who qualify as homeless for the purposes of this subtitle because the children are living in circumstances described in clauses (i) through (iii)

Homeless Youth Definition Con’t For the purpose of the PIT Count, a “youth” is identified as anyone who is under the age of 25. Anyone you encounter who is under the age of 18 and not with a parent/guardian is considered an “unaccompanied minor”. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: These definitions are specific to the count and determining if a person’s information should be included in the annual count report. THESE DEFINITIONS ARE NOT NECESSARILY CONNECTED TO ANY ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR VARIOUS PROGRAMS.

What’s the hype about Youth? The actual number of homeless and unaccompanied youth is difficult to gather. The National Alliance to End Homeless (NAEH) estimates that 550,000 youth experience more than a week of homelessness each year Integrated youth and PIT count efforts will get a better baseline number for HUD reporting, prevent duplication of effort, and enable collection of data. Ultimately, like other priority population, HUD is looking to focus strategic efforts toward ending youth homelessness.

Youth Specific Count information Connect with: Homeless youth service providers homeless and previously homeless youth Non-profits/Government agencies Youth Services for specific youth population suchas LGBT, etc. County Office of Educ. & school districts McKinney Vento Liaisons Family Health service providers Informal networks of support Faith community Community youth advocates Youth sanctuary locations

Youth Specific Count information cont… Remember to think… What are the existing community structures you can reach out to? (i.e. where do program referrals come from?)

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Contact information Janice Lara-Hewey- jlarahewey@ccmaine.org Phil Allen – pallen@preblestreet.org