Thursday, July 13, 2023
About this Event
With more participating partners than ever, Indiana BOS reports rise in homeless individuals counted during annual census
INDIANAPOLIS (July 13, 2023) – The Indiana Balance of State (BOS) Continuum of Care (CoC), encompassing all counties in Indiana except Marion County, released the results of the 2023 Point In Time Count on July 12, 2023. The Point In Time Count is a single-night count of individuals experiencing homelessness in emergency shelters, transitional housing and unsheltered locations across the state of Indiana. Of the 91 counties in the Indiana BOS, 65 counties (71%) participated in this year’s count. Of those 65 counties, unsheltered count data was provided for 54 total counties.
Key takeaways from this year’s count include:
The Indiana BOS CoC Board is committed to preventing and ending homelessness in Indiana. The BOS CoC Board recently launched a 2023-2025 Strategic Plan, which can be found here. During the next three years, the BOS CoC Board will work to increase affordable housing opportunities for people experiencing homelessness, advocate for resources to support, strengthen the Homeless Response System and ensure a more equitable homeless response system for Indiana. The BOS CoC Board uses the PIT Count results to understand who is experiencing homelessness, how long they have been homeless and what their needs are. They will then decide how to allocate CoC funding and refine programs across the housing spectrum to help the most vulnerable Hoosiers in the state.
"The Point In Time Count is successful because of the coordinators, regional chairs, and volunteers throughout the 16 regions who worked tirelessly to bring more partners and stakeholders to the table, resulting in the most comprehensive and accurate count the Indiana BOS has ever conducted," said Grant Peters, Homeless Management Information System Manager at IHCDA, who oversees the annual homeless census. "More resources for street outreach through ESG-CV was a gamechanger in the results of this year's unsheltered count."
For more information on the Indiana BOS CoC, you can visit their website here and for Point In Time Count data and historical archives, please visit the HMIS Data Portal here.