The Trouble With Finding- and Counting- the Homeless

Today, kids across the country will be on the hunt for easter eggs. At the same time, the city of Toronto is gearing up for a search of their own. The annual point-in-time count is a one-night snapshot of homelessness in a city. A night when officials and volunteers attempt to find, count, and survey the city's homeless population. (And you thought searching for chocolate eggs was hard!)

The count itself is nothing new. Most U.S. cities completed their counts in January. The web is abuzz, however, with outrage over a unique twist on Toronto's count. The city is hiring 100 people, at $100 bucks a pop, to pose as homeless people on the streets. Here are the details from the 13th juror:

Spending up to $10,000 to hire 100 "fake" homeless people for an evening might sound to some like an odd use of tax dollars in a recession.

But city officials say the "decoys" are needed to ensure the statistical validity of Toronto's second-ever survey of its homeless population.

Between 50 and 100 people - including students, actors, formerly homeless people and social workers - will be given $100 prepaid Visa cards to pose as homeless on the city's streets as volunteer surveyors try to count Toronto's real homeless population on April 15.

This blog has covered the intrinsic difficulties in counting the homeless. It's political, subjective, affected by the weather, and tough to orchestrate. But the fact that it's not all-encompassing, that it's impossible to find and count everyone, its one of the greatest limitations and oft-critiqued elements of the point-in-time count.

So while $10,000 may seem like a great deal of money to spend on paying folks to pose as homeless people, it will be incredibly helpful to know just how many people the count is missing. This information will be crucial to advocates as the point-in-time count methodology methodology is refined and sharpened. I, for one, will be eager to know how the hunt goes on April 15th.