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Homelessness in Baltimore
It’s hard to know exactly how many people in Baltimore City experience homelessness.
In a report to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), city officials asserted that on any given night in 2017, 2,669 people experienced homelessness in Baltimore City.
BUT…
The Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Human Services acknowledges that the “point in time” methodology it uses to perform its count is “imperfect” and says it doesn’t “precisely reflect the actual number of homeless persons in the city.” The point in time methodology only counts sheltered residents of programs that participated in a city-issued survey. It counts only in certain areas of the city and during certain hours. It follows one of the narrowest definitions of homelessness set by HUD. And even under this definition, the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night exceeds traditional shelter capacity.
Each year when the city performs its point in time count, it tallies more people than shelter beds.