The Missouri Balance of State (BoS) will conduct a count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless individuals and families to follow regulations set forth by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Missouri's BoS point-in-time date is set for January 27, 2016.
The Missouri BoS Continuum of Care is a 101-county area that excludes counties in more metro continuum of care programs. HUD requires a bi-annual count, in odd years, during the last 10 days of January to gauge progress toward national goals of reducing and ending homelessness. In addition to the biennial count required by HUD, the Missouri Balance of State and other metro Continua have elected to conduct one point-in-time count annually to better track trends and needs of individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Each county's leader is responsible for organizing, facilitating and reporting the unsheltered survey results to Missouri Housing Development Commission who reports the numbers to HUD. Sheltered survey information is reported to the Institute for Community Alliances.
For 2016,The Health Care Collaborative of Rural Missouri's Lafayette County Social Services Committee will be leading the count for Lafayette County. In 2015, Lafayette County had 5 sheltered and 33 unsheltered.
To complete the point-in-time count, county leaders need large networks of volunteers to help complete surveys. If you are interested in volunteering, please call Suzanne or Sarah at the Health Care Collaborative of Rural Missouri at 660-259-2440.
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