New point-in-time survey to assess homeless population

The Sherman Police Department is taking steps to assess and determine the needs of a group that often goes unnoticed within the community. The department recently started its own efforts to identify and count the homeless population within the city’s borders.

City officials said the city count will help the department and city better assess the state of homelessness and better prepare it to potentially assist and better provide services in the future.

“We are doing our own point-in-time count to determine actually how many people do we have living homeless in Sherman because you have a three-pronged issue that most people don’t ever think about,” Sherman Executive Director of Public Safety Zachary Flores said.

There are three types of people that are often considered homeless at first glance, but Flores said only one of them fits the true definition.

The first group includes indigent people who are not homeless, but may use services aimed at assisting the poor, including the homeless, like soup kitchens. The second group includes transient people who are homeless, but are moving or travelling and do not consider Sherman home.

“Just because you got off the Greyhound in Sherman, and you don’t have a place to stay right now, but you are moving out, doesn’t mean you are homeless here,” Flores said.

The final group is made up of the homeless people living in Sherman. While they are the target group for the count, Flores said there are different states of homelessness ranging from those living sheltered, potentially at a shelter or moving from home to home, to those who are not sheltered.

“What we are trying to do is combat a little bit of the community’s perspective of, ‘hey, we have a homeless problem,’” he said. “I’m not saying we don’t; We’re trying to figure out exactly what that is and what that looks like. And, that’s done by conducting an account.”

The city’s efforts to count the homeless population began in May and is still under development, officials said this week. The move came shortly after Flores was promoted from chief of police to his current role.

“Part of my new role here is to kind of oversee all things public safety related — most people see that as police and fire, but I’ve also taken on a role with code enforcement,” he noted frequent questions on who’s purview homelessness falls under.

Flores said there are other groups that conduct point-in-time studies, but this would be focused specifically on Sherman. Others are county or regionwide. Most recently, Flores said Sherman assisted in counts as a part of the most recent census.

Meanwhile, continuum of care providers are required to do their own point-in-time counts at least every other year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. These counts are held annually in late January and survey the homeless population for a single day.

A count conducted by the Texoma Homeless Coalition found 55 sheltered individuals living in Grayson and Fannin counties.

“When you look at those reports, they’re grouped by area,” he said. “So, we’re grouped with Fannin and Cooke counties and it makes it a little bit difficult to determine exactly how much of that is isolated to Sherman.”

By doing the count, Flores said Sherman can better fits its response and assistance to the actual needs of the community. Rather than taking a broad approach, Flores said the count will allow for a more targeted response.

“If we can determine what our homeless population is in Sherman, as a municipality we can look to other organizations that we may want to provide money to help those homeless,” Flores said. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel an come up with some new homeless initiative that there’s people already going.”

“It may not always be addressed the way that every community member wants it to be, but we want to be proactive and let the community know that we are concerned about their quality of life,” he continued.

The study can also look also help the department itself better deliver services to a group that traditionally is lesser served despite having equal, if not more need for services. Flores cited a murder at a homeless camp near the Ashley Home Store as an example.

“The fact remains that it is still a part of the community that has needs to receive police services,” he said.