Metro Denver Homeless Initiative

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May 19, 2011

The results of the 2011 Point in Time have been published. 

The Metropolitan Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI), a nonprofit organization that seeks to end homelessness across the Metro Denver region, organized a Point in Time Homeless Count for the seven county Metro Denver region.  

The purpose of the annual Point in Time is to count the number of homeless individuals on one day of the year and to educate citizens about the presence of homelessness within their own communities.  Community, faith-based, and local government organizations use the information collected from the Point in Time to identify the trends and service needs of the homeless population in the Metro Denver region.

Key Findings:

• On Monday night, January 24, 2011, there were an estimated 11,377 homeless men, women and children in Metropolitan Denver.
• Homeless persons are much more likely to be living in households with children: 62 percent versus 38 percent.
• Compared to the general population, minorities are over-represented among the homeless population. 
• The largest proportion (42.1%) of all homeless persons spent Monday night in the City and County of Denver.  More, however, spent Monday night in other Metro area counties (57.9%).
• The majority of households without children (55.6%) indicated that they spent the night of January 24, 2011 in Denver.  Conversely, the majority of households with children (65.9%) spent Monday night in counties other than Denver.
• On Monday night, all homeless people were predominantly staying temporarily with family or friends (30.9%), in transitional housing (23.5%) or in an emergency shelter (17.4%).
• For the purpose of this study, people were considered newly homeless if they had been homeless for less than one year and this was their first episode of homelessness.  On January 24, 2011, 2402 people (23.7%) were considered newly homeless.  Of the newly homeless, fully two-thirds (66.6%) were in households with children. 
• New this year, HUD has included families in its definition of chronically homeless.  There are 466 chronically homeless respondents who meet HUD’s definition.  Slightly more than three-quarters (76.4%) are male.  Of all homeless, persons in families comprise one-third (33.2%) of all chronically homeless persons.