CINCINNATI — Hamilton County is seeing an overall decline in the number of people who are sleeping on the streets and in emergency shelters, according to a new report released by Strategies to End Homelessness.
The report, released last week, shows a modest decline of these populations less than 1% from 2021 to 2022. However, the report showed a 16% decline from 2017 to 2022.
Advocates for those experiencing homelessness cautioned reports like this only tell part of the story.
“I can just say that from our perspective the numbers of people experiencing homelessness are going up,” said Georgine Getty, executive director of Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen.
Before COVID-19, Getty said about half of the soup kitchen’s guests were unsheltered, while the other half had housing. Now, she says about 70% are homeless without shelter.
Getty said the soup kitchen is also serving about 14% more meals since last year.
“The system can only count the people who are in the system,” she said. “People outside of that system are incredibly hard to find.”
The 16% decline cited in the report is only in reference to those who are unsheltered on the streets and those in emergency shelters.
Getty said oftentimes, people experiencing homelessness are couch surfing or sleeping in their cars.
The report cited a decrease of 27% in the number of unsheltered people from 2020 to 2022.
“The numbers in shelter, those numbers are accurate, they're always gonna be accurate,” said Josh Spring, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition. “But it only tells a portion of the story.”
Spring cites COVID-19 as a possible factor for the decline, since social distancing restrictions limited the capacity of some shelters.
He said measuring the number of people in emergency shelters tends to only reflect the availability of beds.
“By that, I mean, if today we opened up 200 more beds, they’d be filled because there’s 200 people who need them,” he said.
Spring said many families seeking shelter are turned away.
“The bottom line is if we want to end homelessness, we have to create housing that is affordable and our city is short,” he said.
Douglas Braunstein and his wife have not had stable, long-term housing for more than two decades. They said they've struggled to find shelters that accept them together as a couple.
“We've been at Greyhound for a couple days and last night we slept at a bus stop,” he said. “We didn't want to go to a shelter and be separated.”
Braunstein is on disability. He said he receives $900 a month.
“The housing for low-income is not good, too many hoops, and then the waiting list is too long,” he said.
Braunstein said it’s not just about finding housing, it’s about keeping it. He wishes there was more education and support in place to assist with that aspect.
“People just think that we're all drunks and drug addicts,” he said. “It’s not true. We're all different, come from different places and different people have different struggles.”
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