The count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and its results can be used alongside other factors to determine funding. But those estimates have often not been accurate, some experts told ABC News.
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Back when I was helping my ex do advocacy work for the homeless 25 years ago, we were tasked by the county to do a homeless count in Modesto, along with 4-5 other agencies over a period of 3 days. After the count was over, we found there were more than a dozen instances where each agency counted the same individual in different parts of Modesto. There's no telling how many people were counted multiple times with false names, even though they were asked if they had already been counted.
Our conclusion? Because it's damned near impossible to do a count on an extremely transient population, the best we could do was a rough estimate and we came to find out later we weren't even close.
