Norwich
— At least
92 children
in New
London
County have
no home but
the streets,
preliminary
figures from
a homeless
census show.
Eighty of
those
children —
defined as
those under
18 years of
age — are
with a
parent; a
dozen are on
their own.
Advocates
for the
homeless met
Friday to
review those
figures and
discuss how
to account
for those
they know
could not be
counted.
The
numbers are
based on a
“point-in-time”
census
conducted by
17 nonprofit
and social
service
agencies on
the night of
Jan. 26, a
census
required by
the federal
Department
of Housing
and Urban
Development
to determine
the funding
it will give
the region.
It is a
census,
advocates
say, that is
deeply
flawed.
“If
you've got a
family
living in
their car,
they're not
going to
want to talk
to you
because
they'll lose
their kids,”
said Spring
Raymond of
Bethsaida
Community
Inc., who's
in charge of
crunching
the numbers.
“If they
tell you 'I
don't have a
roof over my
kids'
heads,' then
they're not
going to
have their
kids. And
they know
that.”
That is
only one of
the problems
faced by the
counters on
that night.
Another was
the intense
privacy of
those to be
counted. For
example,
many
homeless
veterans
suffer from
post-traumatic
stress
disorder and
shy away
from
shelters,
preferring
to live in
the woods.
“There's
a big
difference
in
interviewing
someone in
the shelter
versus
someone
that's in
the woods or
under a
bridge,”
said Russell
Carmichael,
president of
the New
London
Grassroots
Homeless
Coalitions
Ministries
Inc. “You
start
getting
personal,
they start
getting
angry. They
don't like
you going to
where
they're
hiding out.”
And yet,
if advocates
can't get an
accurate
count on the
number of
homeless
veterans,
those
veterans
won't get
the help
they are
entitled to.
“We do
not want to
intrude on
people who
don't want
to be
intruded
on,” said
Beverly
Goulet,
director of
Norwich
Human
Services.
“But we want
to get as
accurate a
count as
possible so
we can get
the
resources we
need.”
Also,
said Goulet,
there are
many
families
sharing
living
quarters one
step away
from the
street.
“We're
not able to
capture
those
doubled up
with friends
or family,”
she said.
“We have a
number of
elderly who
have their
families
with them,
afraid
they're
going to
lose their
housing if
someone
learns their
families are
living with
them.”
Given
those and
other
caveats,
preliminary
numbers from
the census
show that
there are at
least 360
homeless
persons
living in
New London
County,
compared to
319 at the
same time
last year.
That
figure
includes 43
families and
231
individuals.
Eight of
those
families had
been
homeless
from six
months to a
year, eight
between a
year and two
years, and
seven for
more than
two years.
The
numbers also
reflect what
advocates
have been
saying this
winter:
Whereas, in
years past,
about one
out of 10 of
the homeless
were women,
this year
fully
one-third of
them are.
Two of
them,
Raymond
said, were
pregnant.
“I put
the two
pregnant
adults under
families
because they
will be
pretty soon,
and the
children
will be
homeless,”
Raymond
said.
The
numbers also
showed that
many of the
homeless are
people over
40 years
old: 95 were
between 40
and 49; 45
were between
50 and 64;
and five
were 65 or
older.
The
census also
showed that,
contrary to
what some
public
officials
have
alleged,
most of the
homeless
live in or
very close
to their
hometowns.
Of the
299 who told
advocates
the last
town where
they had
housing, 256
reported
having had a
home in a
town in the
region, and
more than
half had had
homes in
either
Norwich or
New London.
“People
go to where
their
families
are,”
Carmichael
said. “These
people are
from around
here. They
have family
here.”
Raymond
instructed
representatives
of the
agencies
involved in
the count to
go back and
review their
records,
because
while
shelter beds
have been
filled for
most of the
winter, some
counts did
not reflect
that.
Goulet
said
advocates
know the
numbers
should be
higher.
“Every
agency here
is just
straight
out,” she
said. “As
rents go up,
more
families are
being
displaced,
and they're
going
bedpost to
bedpost.
“Every
single day
every one of
the agencies
here gets a
call that
somebody's
losing their
housing. We
all hate
those calls,
because we
know how
little is
out there;
we know
what's going
to happen to
the family
or the
individual.
It's a
terrible
feeling.”