Last week, initial results from the 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count were shared. The PIT Count is an annual census that provides a rough snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness on a given night. This year, the PIT Count was held on January 26, 2022.
We’re excited to learn that the 2022 PIT Count initially shows a 22 percent reduction in chronic homelessness – defined as anyone experiencing homelessness for more than a year, or repeatedly – compared to 2021. This proves what we’ve been saying for years: ending chronic homelessness in DC is possible.
READ: MK’s Thoughts on the 2022 PIT Count in The Washington Post and DCist
This year’s PIT Count took place largely before more than 2,800 Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) vouchers for single adults took effect – a result of budget wins in the past two years.
It is our hope that by this time next year, with the combination of an influx in resources for PSH and the life-saving services provides by social services and other programs, we’ll see a larger decrease in chronic homelessness. These initial results prove that our advocacy is working. Ending chronic homelessness is an integral first step in ensuring everyone has the housing they need to thrive.
To build on this success, we must work together and push all those involved to pick up the pace in the translation of historic funding from numbers in the budget into the housing that ends homelessness. We are also calling on the DC government to stop responding to homelessness with bulldozers, police, barriers, and artificial timelines. Instead, we urge leaders to choose what we know works: meeting our unhoused neighbors with compassion, choice, and housing that meets their needs.
For more information on our advocacy work, please follow The Way Home Campaign, an advocacy effort led by Miriam’s Kitchen.
