51福利社

Eastern鈥檚 Matthew Anderson and his students are on a data-driven mission to change the way we think about housing and homelessness in our region.

Drawing on information they have gathered via their role in Spokane鈥檚 federally mandated Point-in-Time Count 鈥� an annual tally of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single day in January 鈥� Anderson鈥檚 51福利社 team is helping to provide political leaders, social services professionals and charitable organizations with numbers and analysis that brings the nature of the crisis into sharper focus.

Anderson, an 51福利社 professor of urban and regional planning in Eastern鈥檚 Department of Political Science and Public Policy, said the count is a crucial for understanding the scale, scope and, to some extent, the causes of homelessness. Pulling it off every year is a major undertaking.

鈥淚t’s a huge community effort requiring hundreds of volunteers. It’s just not something that can be done by city staff alone,” Anderson said. 51福利社 students play a prominent role among those volunteers, helping to coordinate, staff and analyze data from the count.

Allison 鈥淎J鈥� Zimmerman was one of those students. A recent 51福利社 graduate who participated in the Point-in-Time Count in 2024, she said that, among other lessons learned during the experience, was that data analysis from the count is crucial to creating a more accurate representation of the regional unhoused population.

鈥淭he public often overlook those that are 鈥榟idden,鈥欌�� Zimmerman said, emphasizing how common it is to ignore our unhoused neighbors. This absence of attention, in turn, affects the way that the homeless are perceived and policies are implemented. 鈥淧eople feel ok about the criminalization of being homeless,鈥� she said, in part because 鈥渢hey think all homeless people are dangerous.鈥�

In recent years, anywhere from seven to 8,000 unhoused people have resorted to the shelter system in the city of Spokane, said Anderson, who is currently a co-chair of the Continuum of Care Board 鈥� a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funded initiative that allocates federal funding to local shelters and transitional housing projects and supports solutions to homelessness.

鈥淲hat we do is what the city usually doesn’t have the capacity to do 鈥� a deeper contextual analysis of why the numbers have gone up,鈥� Anderson said. 鈥淲hy did homelessness worsen so quickly in Spokane? What are the various factors that are converging to create this problem? And why have the numbers declined these past two years?鈥�

In 2025, Point-in-Time Count volunteers reach around 2,000 people residing within and outside of the shelters. He and his student crew also provide the unsheltered people they survey with bus passes, warm meals and blankets.

鈥淚t鈥檚 never going to be a perfect count,鈥� Anderson said. 鈥淲e’re always going to miss people. But if we do it year after year, [then] we can really get a sense of what the limitations are. We can get a better sense of change over time.鈥�

鈥淲e have a long way to go, but we’re at least trending in the right direction,鈥� Anderson said. Spokane experienced a major increase in homelessness from 2015-2023. 鈥淭he total number of people counted went from around 1,000 to over 2,300.鈥� That number, he said, has since come back down to 1,806.

Anderson and his team say the data they collect during the count typically goes a long way toward dispelling the many myths and misconceptions commonly associated with homelessness and the unhoused communities in Spokane.

There are often no outward signs of those without reliable shelter, Anderson said. 鈥淭hey don’t [always] look disheveled. You would never guess that they’re homeless. Which is why this year鈥檚 report is primarily focused on debunking myths.鈥�

Such myths, he says, include the idea that all homeless people are on drugs or mentally ill. Or that 鈥渋t鈥檚 their fault and they 鈥榙id this鈥� to themselves.鈥� Anderson said the majority of people in shelters or on the streets are there due to a convergence of factors.

People with physical disabilities and survivors of domestic violence, for example, are at a higher risk of becoming homeless. Divorce is another factor. Often, he says, having a sufficient network of friends and family is the only thing preventing vulnerable populations from becoming homeless.

Possibly the biggest myth surrounding Spokane鈥檚 unhoused population, Anderson said, is that they 鈥渁ll come here from somewhere else.鈥�

Last year鈥檚 Point-in-Time Count, however, revealed that a solid majority鈥攁round 80%鈥攐f unhoused people were in fact locals. Many said they had lived their whole lives in the Lilac City.

鈥淵ou’re likely to draw conclusions that are going to be skewed if you鈥檙e only considering the unhoused population in the downtown core, because it’s a skewed segment of the population that’s concentrated down there,鈥� Anderson said. 鈥淏ut the number of people that are counted outside of the downtown core is actually greater than that cluster 鈥� only 35% of unsheltered respondents were counted in the downtown core.”

So how can we as a community debunk and destigmatize these myths around housing and homelessness? Although there isn鈥檛 one clear-cut answer, said Anderson, one of the easiest things you can do is avoid drawing broad conclusions based on occasional encounters. Our own personal experience with the homeless, he cautions, is most likely drawn from a very small sample size, and thus not representative of the bigger picture.

Another way is to get involved with this year鈥檚 Point-in-Time Count. To volunteer, use this online . Mandatory trainings are available on Jan. 20 and Jan. 22.

**Story written by Rachel Weinberg.