On Sunday from 3–9 p.m., the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition will conduct its annual "point-in-time" count of the area's homeless population for the eighth consecutive year.
Teams of volunteers will canvass Travis County with the purpose of counting all the homeless people and gathering demographic and other information. The data, provided to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), will be used to assess how well homelessness services are going and to help secure federal funding for area organizations.
In 2011, the Austin-Round Rock MSA, or metropolitan statistical area, had about 2,362 homeless people and an overall population about 1.7 million, ranking it 57th out of the 100 of highest-populated metro areas in the United States, according to ECHO.
This year, the Austin-Travis County area will receive $4.6 million from HUD through the continuum of care process, which uses data derived from the point-in-time count, said ECHO spokeswoman Lizzie Laster. That figure reflects an increase of nearly $500,000 from the previous year.
