BLOOMINGTON-For Bailey Conklin, her family is her world. And as the pandemic hit in early 2020, she thought her world would be torn apart.

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“It left me, and four young children stranded,” Conklin said. "Because if I hadn’t come here, I would’ve had to give the kids up because there is no way that I could live on the streets with those kids.”

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Conklin faced adversity after adversity. In 2020 alone, Conklin lost her home to fire and was diagnosed with cancer. She was out of a job and out of a home. She moved back to Bloomington in hopes to find shelter and to keep her world together.

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“This whole situation meant that my kids were at risk, that my world was at risk,” said Conklin. “Even though I am released to go back to work, I can’t.”

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Conklin was not the only person battling health issues. One of her daughters suffers from severe asthma. According to Conklin, she only has about 50% lung capacity.

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“If she were to get this, it would shut her lungs down completely, and she would not survive," Conklin said. 

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In fear of bringing the virus home to her children, Conklin felt trapped. 

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“As a mother, that is my worst nightmare: having to bury one of my children,” said Conklin. “That’s every mother’s worst nightmare.”

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Conklin did everything to make sure that the nightmare never came true. She reached out to Bloomington’s New Hope for Families to help keep her world together. 

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"I called Chase from New Hope [for Families], and I was like I don’t know what to do,” Conklin said.

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But she wasn’t alone. Across the nation, many families faced possible homelessness due to the pandemic, but no one knows exactly how many were affected. And the count that was preformed could be a severe undercount.

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"The pandemic is like a wave looming down, and you’ve got nowhere to go, and you feel like you are drowning because you don’t know where the surface is or how to get there," Conklin said. 

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The Undercounted

“Keeping track of who is experiencing homelessness is a difficult task because there is only one official census for people who are experiencing homelessness," said New Hope for Families Roof Director Chase Techentin.

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That census is called the Point in Time (PIT) Count. This count is taken by volunteer and outreach members on a single night in January.

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“We do it on a weeknight in January because that’s when it is coldest, and we know that is when the most people will select into a shelter,” Techentin said.

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Volunteers and outreach members count how many individuals come into each shelter in the county and look around the town for unsheltered members to get an idea of how many people are experiencing homelessness.

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Once those numbers are recorded, the shelters report it to their local government, and then those numbers are compiled on a national level with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This year, researchers believe there could be a severe undercount.

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After reaching out to the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, I received preliminary data for Monroe County’s 2021 Point in Time Count.

 

They haven’t completed their count yet. But they estimate in Monroe County alone, 288 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January this year.

 

To put those population numbers in perspective, during the height of the Great Recession in 2008, it is estimated that 240 people experienced homelessness in Bloomington.

 

Tom Murphy, with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, says that the PIT count will be different this year. “The 2021 count will be different because it will be smaller, it won’t be inclusive of every community, and will be based on a slightly different methodology,” Murphy said.

 

HMIS Data Analyst Daniella Jordan Gonzalez said the PIT Count relies on volunteers to record the homeless population numbers.

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And this year volunteer numbers were sparse.

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“So, when that report finally does come out, you’re not really going to have a full picture of it,” Murphy said.

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But these are not the only numbers that remain invisible and uncounted.

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No Record of Homeless COVID-Related Deaths

Across the nation, homeless deaths and deaths related to COVID remain severely undercounted. Why? Only local organizations keep track of how many people experiencing homeless die each year.

 

“The death count is never tabulated on a national basis. This stuff is always done locally,” Murphy said. “There were these homeless vigils every December, for homeless person Memorial Day, where the volunteers get a count from providers of those who died over the course of the year. But it’s never collected nationally.”

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But University of Washington Doctoral student Matt Fowle wanted to change that.

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“I saw this lack of data on how many homeless people die each year,” Fowle said. “We just have no idea the extent of homeless mortality in the United States.”

 

Fowle started a website and database attempting to track how many homeless people die each year on a national level. Once COVID took over the nation, Fowle knew that he needed to start tracking COVID-related deaths as well.

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So far, he’s found 373 COVID-related deaths, but believes more people from the unhoused community suffered from the virus.

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Why is there no official data on homeless deaths?

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“Medical examiners, offices, and various health care institutions are struggling to track housing status,” Fowle said.  

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Housing status is not listed on most death certificates…hospital records… or on any covid dashboard.

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“When you think about homelessness, its often episodic. Most people are not- Most people do not remain homeless for an extended period of time,” said Fowle. “They become homeless for a week, and then maybe they enter into a shelter, and then they’re out again. It’s kinda, you know difficult to track when someone is homeless or not.”

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Fowle believes it is possible to track homeless deaths, but it would take years to research and implement.

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“I think that there are ways in which researchers could try to look if folks have been in shelter in the past year or so, but that would take many years to see the results of that,” Fowle said.

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Fowle said once housing status becomes recognized all over, getting the research will be easier.

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“If someone had time to reach out to every public health department, potentially you could get a more accurate estimate,” Fowle said.

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A Nation Plagued by Unemployment, Evictions, and Food Scarcity

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​The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the

unemployment rate skyrocketed to nearly 15 percent

in April of 2020. That is the highest jobless rate

since the great depression.

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And it almost doubles the American job loss seen

in the 2007 great recession. The pandemic

didn’t just impact job loss. It also pushed people

out of their homes.

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Bloomington saw that firsthand. At Bloomington’s

New Hope for Families, Techentin said they almost

doubled their capacity and the number of people

they serve in this year alone. ​

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In November of 2020, an estimated 12 million adult

renters reported that they were behind on rent

payments in a Census Bureau Survey. That’s about

1 in 6 renters.

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And nearly 83 million adults, or 34 percent of all adults in the country, found it difficult to cover usual household expenses like food, rent, mortgage, and car payments.

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“Immediately, food was a big issue for us because kids were home from school, and families in our income bracket usually rely on free and reduced lunch," Techentin said. 

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Homelessness on a National and Local Level

Even college towns like Bloomington saw an increase in homeless populations. 

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Reverend Forrest Gilmore has been with Beacon for more than a decade. He says that in all his years working, he's never been through anything like this. 

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“We saw a really significant uptick in street homeless population in Bloomington over the last year,” Gilmore said.

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In order to help with the rising homeless population in Bloomington, Beacon opened three new shelters, including an isolation shelter. Residents were placed in the isolation shelter if anyone experienced any symptoms of COVID to ensure the virus did not spread among the community.

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 As the pandemic continued, resources became limited- including volunteers.

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“We had a 90% drop in our volunteer support from COVID, and even now that’s still way down, but it’s getting better,” Gilmore said.

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While national COVID related deaths remain undercounted… rev. Gilmore says the Bloomington community can count on the shelters always to provide resources and safety, even when staff and volunteer limitability.

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“This is the thing that we are the most proud of: throughout the entire year, we’ve not had a single person experiencing homelessness locally pass away from the disease,” Gilmore said.

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And even through everything, Bailey Conklin feels lucky.  

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“I’m honestly one of the luckier ones. We were able to find a way for me to get into a home. There’s many more than weren’t as lucky.”

 

Resources:

New Hope for Families: https://www.newhope4families.org/

Beacon: https://beaconinc.org/