The Cost of Homelessness in Oklahoma City April 1, 2009 to March ...

Oklahoma City Cost of Homelessness Study 2009‐2010
STUDY CHALLENGES
The Cost Study process brought together a wide variety of homeless and mainstream service
providers who share a commitment to helping Oklahoma City’s homeless community but do
not often collaborate to reach a common goal. Because homeless services in OKC are
dedicated to maintaining comprehensive records, the Cost Study Committee was able to
collect and analyze a substantial amount of information in a relatively short period of time,
and we are confident that the numbers provided are accurate. However, we encountered
numerous challenges in our data collection process that narrowed the overall scope of the
study and ultimately restricted the amount of information included in the Final Report.
Homeless Numbers – Many participating agencies do not track individual client data; for our
purposes, they were able to provide nightly bed counts but could not determine if the same
clients are being served from day to day. Additionally, some of the agencies that provided
monthly data were not able to provide unduplicated client counts for the study period. The
study process inspired several agencies to develop better client tracking methods.
Homeless/Non‐Homeless Client Numbers – Many agencies that serve both homeless and
non‐homeless clients have no way of separating their client numbers or of isolating the cost
of serving only their homeless clients. Some food pantries, free clinics, and the Public
Inebriate Alternative could not be included in the Cost Study for that reason.
Demographics – Most participating programs do not record demographic information; many
that record demographic information do so only partially and sporadically. Few agencies
were able to provide complete demographic data that matched their client numbers.
Ultimately, the Cost Study Committee concluded that the partial demographic data collected
was not sufficient to constitute a representative data set and should be left out of the Final
Report.
Unit Costs – Services to homeless are many and varied, and developing a common definition
for “unit of service” was not possible. Even within a service category, a unit of service can
vary greatly from agency to agency, depending on the amount and level of services available
on site. We developed and provided definitions and offered guidance but ultimately trusted
the agency’s judgment when calculating service units.
Funding Sources – In order to understand the level of support from each government
category (i.e., Federal, State, County, City), providers were asked to complete a “Funding
Sources” form that listed specific (and typical) grant and program categories. They were
asked to provide the Cost Study Committee with information about the sources of all of the
funding that they had reported on their cost study forms. Difficulties arose, as the totals
(taken from budgets) often differed from the actual amount spent during the Cost Study
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