The City of Lawrence and Douglas County have published an online dashboard tracking data on how many people are experiencing homelessness in the community: close to 600, according to the latest data.
The dashboard fulfills a longtime goal of local government. It is one of the initiatives included in the city-county strategic plan to end homelessness, called A Place for Everyone, and it is now available to the public at dgcoks.gov/aplaceforeveryone.
As of March, 589 people were actively experiencing homelessness; there were 79 exits from homelessness and 46 entries into homelessness, according to the dashboard.
Of the 79 exits, 55 people were “moved to inactive,” meaning they had not engaged with homelessness services for more than 90 days. Fifteen found housing placements, and nine were reported as “new program status,” meaning their status had changed since enrolling in services and they are no longer homeless, according to the dashboard.
Of the 46 entries into homelessness in March, 39 were “newly identified,” or “first-time homeless individuals.” Three people who had been housed returned to homelessness, and four people returned from inactive status, according to the dashboard.
The data includes some further specifics: for instance, 43 of the 589 people (7.3%) were ages 18 to 24. There were 27 veterans (4.6%) and 132 chronically homeless people (22.4%), meaning they have been homeless for at least one year or for four periods totaling at least 12 months over the past three years.
The dashboard’s data, which spans December 2024 through March, shows a high of 629 people actively experiencing homelessness. That was in February.
However, the dashboard notes a few caveats:
“Data only count individuals as actively homeless if they are currently enrolled in homelessness services or if they exited from those services to non-permanent housing in the past 90 days,” according to a message in the dashboard. “Individuals not enrolled in these services during that time are not counted as actively homeless, even if they do not have permanent housing.”
It also states that “Data include only individuals who self-report Douglas County as their prior region. Those who recently moved from the county and are being served by agencies in other regions within the KS BoS CoC (Kansas Balance of State Continuum of Care) may also be included. Individuals who do not report a prior region are excluded.”
The dashboard states that its data is continuously updated and may differ from the point-in-time count numbers. Those numbers are collected on one night, once a year.
In August 2024, we reported on the latest finalized point-in-time count results, which included 414 people experiencing homelessness, but people living outside had recently estimated that the number was closer to 600.
The dashboard also includes data going back to March 2024 on how many Lawrence Community Shelter beds are used nightly on average. As of last month, the averages were 34 people in continuous stay programs, 72 in night-by-night emergency shelter and 45 at the Pallet shelter village.
“The data comes from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and the Coordinated Entry System (CES) and is collected through the Kansas Balance of State Continuum of Care’s HMIS enrollment process,” according to the county’s news release announcing the publication of the dashboard.
The Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission approved the A Place for Everyone plan a year ago. Members of both commissions have pushed for staff members and workers with nonprofits that receive public funds to improve data collection.
“Douglas County has been a Built for Zero community since March 2020, focused on ending chronic homelessness,” Assistant County Administrator Jill Jolicoeur said in the release. “A foundational part of this work is having quality data, so we know who is experiencing homelessness in real time.”
The city also maintains an affordable housing data dashboard, and the county maintains a supportive housing data dashboard.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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