'Message of Optimism' Around Homelessness in Orange County

According to a new study, homelessness in Orange County is on the decline.

Eighty people reported being homeless in 2016 compared to 129 in 2015. That’s according to a point in time study, conducted yearly by the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness.

The count represents people who were homeless, both on the streets and in shelters, on the last Wednesday in January.

But how can we explain this decrease?

Michael Reinke is the director of the Inter-Faith Council, which operates the men’s and women’s homeless shelters in Chapel Hill.

Reinke said demand for other IFC services, like bags of groceries, are going down too.

He said the IFC distributed about 15,000 bags of groceries in the previous year, while that is still a lot of food, it’s about 3,000 bags less than the year before. Demand for meals at the community kitchen are also down.

“All of this is not to say that poverty has disappeared in Orange County but rather that we may be seeing the effects of the great recession slowly kind of going away,” said Reinke, “Somewhere close back to normal of where we were before.”

Last year the IFC moved their community home to a new location, where they now offer transitional housing for up to 52 men. Women and children are housed in a different location. The previous shelter on Rosemary Street, which is still the site of the community kitchen, was equipped as an emergency shelter for when the weather got bad.

Reinke said the new community house focuses on long term stays and rehabilitation, opposed to simply offering a one night fix.

“There is a variety of different issues that people come in with when they say I need emergency shelter and often times these are problems that can’t be fixed in one day, sometimes, actually quite often they can’t be fixed in 30 days,” said Reinke.

That’s why, according to Reinke, providing transitional housing opposed to emergency shelter is important. He likened it to actually healing a wound, instead of just putting on a Band-Aid.

Reinke also said that during this past winter, there was vacancy in the women’s and children’s shelter, which he said was unusual.

Local Organizations Making A Difference

Orange County may also be seeing a drop in homelessness due to the array of organizations working in the community, like Community Home Trust and Habitat for Humanity.

“All of these organizations have been working together to say, what can we do to reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness in our community,” said Reinke. “And the great thing about these numbers is that we may actually be experiencing some success, I mean that’s some really good news.”

While it appears that the efforts of local organizations are helping homelessness in Orange County, it’s difficult to rule out other reasons behind the decrease in the number of homeless people. Part of the decrease could be explained by populations leaving town or simply avoiding being counted.

Reinke hopes to keep building on the positive gains.

“Good news is we’ve made a difference, not as much of a difference as we need to,” said Reinke. “When you say, you could see some success now let’s build on it and perhaps even become more successful, that’s a message of optimism, that’s a message of things can get better so let’s pull together to see how we can keep those trends going.”

‘Message of Optimism’ Around Homelessness in Orange County

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