This week, over 100 volunteers from the community and organizations like Homeward Pikes Peak, The PLACE, Hope COS, Westside CARES, the Colorado Springs Homeless Union and others, coordinated by the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care and Community Health Partnership conducted the annual Point in Time (PIT) survey, which counts how many people are experiencing homelessness on a single night (Jan. 26) in the community. This information, along with data collected year-round from other sources, helps communities better understand why people lose their housing and, in turn, how communities can design responsive programs that ensure homelessness is a rare, brief, and non-recurring phenomenon.
“It is a federal regulation from HUD [United States Department of Housing and Urban Development] that all communities conduct a PIT count,” explains Merrina Mendez, the community relations coordinator for the homeless initiatives team at Community Health Partnership. “It is not specific to El Paso County. We conduct this count every year around the same timeframe, and what this data does is allow more resources and funding that goes directly into our community.”
Max Kronstadt, an organizer with the Colorado Springs Homeless Union, wants to ensure the data collected is as accurate as possible. “We are trying to rally to encourage folks to take the PIT survey because we want the most accurate count of people experiencing homelessness in our community as possible,” he said during a survey event at Acacia Park on Monday. “We know that historically the PIT is a significant under-count. So we’re trying to rally to both send that message to folks experiencing homelessness here, and also the city, that people don’t want to be invisible, they want to stand up and be counted.”
The volunteers collect data from those identified as “unsheltered” on Jan. 26, or those spending the night on the street, in a car, park, abandoned building, bus station, or encampment. Those staying at shelters, like Springs Rescue Mission, are not included in the PIT count.
“It’s important to emphasize that this is just a snapshot of what homelessness looks like in any community,” said Mendez. “Particularly, we have seen through PIT data a decrease in homelessness, but we know that we are struggling with resources, so it’s important that we get as many counts as we can because we know, working with this population and agencies that support this population, that nothing is decreasing. We need more funds, we need more resources, we need more permanent supportive housing units, we need an additional warming shelter. These are all things that we need annually, so to limit to one night – it’s a snapshot. This isn’t what we depend on to drive efforts. We look at homelessness holistically, throughout the year. This is just a federal regulation, there should not be an emphasis on the importance of the PIT. There are many variables that can drive the count. One of them is weather. We’re expecting extreme cold temps on the night of the count, therefor we will see more of our unhoused neighbors seeking shelter, staying with friends, seeking emergency services. We know that there are going to be different causes that are going to effect this count. It is not meant to be accurate, it’s what it is, it’s a point in time.”
Kandy Lewis, a volunteer with the Homeless Union, experienced homelessness from 2015 to 2024. “The homeless community does not get counted properly,” she said. “There’s so many different loopholes that there’s a lot of people that are missed. The city says that they’re doing such a great job responding to homelessness and it’s not so much. It’s not based on fact.”
Lewis notes that often many people experiencing homeless are hesitant to participate in surveys like this. “A lot of them are so gun shy, so to speak, that they’re afraid their information’s going to get used in the wrong way, or somebody’s going to steal their identity, or they just don’t like talking to the cops or anybody, period,” she said. “They just shy away from it because even though it’s something really, really beneficial, if they don’t trust what’s going on, they’re not going to do it.”
Aimee Cox was appointed as the Chief Housing and Homelessness Officer for Colorado Springs in October 2024. She notes that the PIT survey isn’t the only source of data for the city of Colorado Springs and other groups working to address homelessness. “We use the data that’s publicly available,” she said. “This is a data point that we’ve been using in this community for many years, and so we’ve tracked this number over many years. I think that if we’re conducting the count similarly, annually over time, if that methodology stays consistent over time, whether or not it’s entirely accurate to the number, it should be able to help us draw a trend line. We do lean into that number. We are working with the Continuum of Care and Community Health Partnerships, serving on their data subcommittee so that we can bring more data to this work. There are a number of reports that they report on, they have a longitudinal systems analysis, they have system performance measures, there’s the point in time count, there’s a housing inventory count.”
Cox notes that the city itself does not provide direct services, but works with other organizations to address homelessness. “We’ve routinely invested in shelter, because we know that people need opportunities to come in,” she said. “Once they come in to a shelter, a transitional program, recovery housing, whatever that is, we need to ensure that there are pathways out of those programs into permanent housing. We’ve worked to reduce barriers in our programs so that people can come in, regardless of whether or not they have a substance use disorder, active addiction, to make sure that if we can accommodate some belongings and that the programs can accommodate some belongings and pets and those kinds of things. We’ve done that kind of work. We’re still finalizing the priorities for this year. We do a process through our HUD funds and our local, our local homelessness action plan, and our operational plan, so there’s a little bit of a complexity there. I’ll be putting more focus into addressing the unsheltered and chronic homelessness in our community.”
Mendez acknowledges the complexity of homelessness in Colorado Springs. “It’s not a homelessness ‘problem,'” she said. “It’s not a homelessness ‘issue.’ It’s a lack of affordable housing. It’s a lack of permanent supportive units. It’s a lack of funding. It’s a mental health struggle. It’s so many things. We believe that an individual has to have a safe place to lay their head at night and have their basic needs met before we can tackle things like a job, or going back to school, or getting sober. Those are really hard things to do with a house, with all of the support that you have at your fingertips. Imagine having none of that. Imagine getting off of work from a minimum wage job in Colorado to sleep outside … 40 to 60% of our unhoused population are carrying jobs, but to save enough money to have a security deposit, a first-month’s rent, on top of supplying your basic needs while living on the street – it’s expensive to be in poverty.”
Lewis, who had been homeless for nearly a decade, was able to finally access housing with help from Westside Cares. “I kind of got surprised and got placed into an apartment and it’s my very own space,” she said. First one, there was always a significant other, or my kids, or extended family and never my own space.”
