Chronic Homeless Population Drops
By Robin Vinci | Editor at June 9, 2024 | 2:30 pm | Print
It was revealed this week, that the chronic homeless population has decreased from 103 families three years ago to 1 family and 64 people in total today.
At the Mayor’s Building Hope Together meeting last week, which is a plan to help end homelessness, there was a detailed discussion on the numbers of homeless in the coordinated network (includes New Britain, Berlin, Bristol, Plainville and Southington).
“Within that Coordinated Access Network (CAN) we identify every year how many chronically homeless individuals we have in the area,” said Mayor Erin Stewart. “We have a system put into place to identify who is chronically homeless. We have virtually eliminated chronic family homelessness from our CAN. We are down to one family who is seeking stable housing.”
There were 103 chronically homeless households in the CAN. It included families as well as individuals. From that number, all the families are now housed except for one.
“We worked closely with the Connecticut Coalition to Prevent Homelessness and those numbers are based on the number of people in shelters and other intake statistics that we received from 2011,” said Stewart. “Out of that 103, we are down to 64 individuals that we need to find housing for. We have cut our numbers almost in half.”
New Britain has taken the lead on this project because it is the only City that can provide services in the CAN.
“We do end up running the lead, but it is a huge milestone for the Building Hope Together Committee. Our mission is to end homelessness. It is proof that everything we are doing is working,” said Stewart. “We have dedicated so many resources and volunteer hours and gotten so many non-profit and volunteer groups together to help and this is proof that it is working.”
A chronically homeless person is someone with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more or who has been homeless at least four times in the last three years. That includes those who live in shelters, house surf or anything else where they do not feel that they have a permanent home.
Stewart said it is not easy to solve homelessness and it is something all cities and towns must deal with.
“But the policies we put in place are working,” she said. “It is a huge milestone for the City and a larger indication that Building Hope Together is really making a difference in the lives of those people who are struggling in our area.”
Stewart said housing opportunities will continue to increase for the homeless. Places such as the Howey House, which recently was approved on North St., will continue to dwindle down on the number of homeless people.
“I am so proud. We’ve worked so hard on it and it is actually working,” Stewart added.
