Wilder Research just completed its seventh triennial statewide homeless study. Along with many other government, nonprofit, philanthropic and community organizations, Compass uses this information – homeless persons – as a key measure in our housing section.

We talked with Greg Owen, consulting scientist at Wilder Research and director of the study, to get an inside view on it – who uses the information, how the study gets implemented, and how it has changed over the years. 

How long has Wilder been doing the statewide homeless study?

Wilder Research has conducted the statewide homeless study every three years since 1991. We do the survey on the fourth Thursday in October, and we try to locate as many people experiencing homelessness as we can. We find them in emergency shelters, battered women's shelters, and transitional housing sites, as well as non-shelter sites, such as hot meal programs, drop-in centers, outdoor encampments, abandoned buildings, and under bridges.

Why the 4th Thursday in October?

We try to maintain as much consistency as possible in survey questions and conditions so that the data can be compared from cycle to cycle. We chose late October to avoid the seasonal variations that occur in the population when our weather gets very hot or very cold.

Who else is involved with the study, and who uses the information?

Wilder takes the lead in the survey, but we have many funders, partner agencies, and volunteers who make it possible. Last year more than 1,000 volunteers fanned out across the state to survey people experiencing homelessness. We work with several hundred providers throughout the state in government, non-profit, faith-based, and community organizations to implement the study.

The findings are used by virtually everyone in Minnesota who works on the issue of homelessness. It is also used in other states where the study serves as a model for projecting trends and conducting similar surveys. Users include state legislators, county and municipal governments, nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, community groups, students, media and others.

Once we did the first statewide study in 1991, shelter providers found that having the data enabled them to better meet client needs and also helped to bring in more federal dollars to do their work. That paved the way for a lot more interest and support of the project. The shelter and outreach providers who work with homelessness are integral to the success of the project. They are the front-line workers who help us identify homeless persons and often conduct many of the interviews, especially in transitional housing sites.

How do you find and recruit volunteers? What kinds of people volunteer for the study, and why?

People of all ages and from all walks of life volunteer to be interviewers for the study. Many of our volunteers come from faith-based organizations and community groups. A significant number of volunteers are college students who have a special interest in social issues. Several business groups also provide volunteer support. Many of our volunteers are "homeless study veterans" who have been helping out as interviewers and site coordinators since the study began.

I think people volunteer for the homeless study for many reasons. One-on-one interaction with someone who is homeless can change your perspective on this subject. You begin to appreciate the many ways in which homelessness can happen to someone, how difficult some barriers are to overcome, and how diverse our solutions need to be, if we really want to end homelessness. I think that many of our interviewers get the sense that if life had taken a somewhat different turn at a critical time, "that could be me." It is a very powerful interaction and inspires many of our volunteers to get more engaged in ending homelessness.

Has the study changed over the years?

The study has grown in scope, and we have learned each time, but in many ways the study itself has remained quite similar to the original effort in 1991. This allows us to do “apples to apples” comparisons and follow trends over time.

Today, we are much better organized throughout the state, partly because of the state and regional efforts to end long-term homelessness, and partly because of the increased attention to the problem of homelessness in Minnesota. There are now 11 Continuum of Care regions in the state. Each has a coordinator or other person identified that we work with to plan outreach and coordinate with providers and volunteers.

We also have more ways of finding homeless persons than we did at the beginning, including street outreach teams and Project Homeless Connect and Project Community Connect events held throughout the state.

Are the actual numbers of homeless people really growing, or are we just getting better at finding and counting them?

This is a question we have been asked a lot recently. While our outreach efforts have been improving, we are certain that the numbers are increasing. By looking at comparisons from 2006 to 2009, we can see that the number of residents in emergency shelters jumped by 25 percent and the number of residents in transitional housing increased by 21 percent.  During that same time period the number of people who we were able to find in non-shelter locations increased by only 17 percent. This makes us confident that regardless of improved efforts and success at conducting outreach, the increase in homelessness observed during 2009 is real and not simply an artifact of the method.

Greg Owen is a consulting scientist at Wilder Research and project director of the homeless study. He directed Wilder's first study of St. Paul's homeless population in 1984 and has directed the statewide homeless study since it began in 1991. He is responsible for overall project design, oversight, and dissemination of findings. At Wilder Research, Greg has led a wide range of research projects, including major studies of hospice care, welfare reform, delinquency, homelessness, and access to preventive health care.