This year’s count shows a drop in homelessness in Chattanooga region

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – This year’s Point-In-Time count shows a drop of homelessness in our region.

This year’s count happened on one night on January 28.

It found 939 homeless people in our 11 county region.

That was a drop of 14% from last year.

About two thirds of them were outside, while a third were in shelters.

“As federal homelessness funding continues to evolve, the Point-in-Time Count remains a critical tool for ensuring our community is accurately represented in those decisions,” said Mackenzie Kelly, Executive Director of the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition. “While PIT Count does give us an important snapshot of homelessness in our region, it is only a piece of a much larger picture.  While we’ve seen a decrease this year, we are in a time of shifting priorities and increased competition for limited federal resources that will continue to impact how many households we’re able to serve.  Our focus remains on strengthening the system so that homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrecurring.”

You can see the full results by clicking here.

The count included 31 veterans and 133 people with serious mental illness.