On Monday night, Jan. 27, six people tramped through a wooded area in the Southpoint neighborhood of Durham. Besides conversation, the loudest sound was the crunch of leaves and fallen branches. Flashlights helped the group avoid some – but far from all – low-hanging branches.
About 175 people went out for the annual Point in Time (PIT) count, a survey of unsheltered residents in Durham. Among them were S. Nicole Diggs, Ph.D., an assistant professor of public administration and 11 current or former students from her master’s course in Urban Issues and Problems at North Carolina Central University (NCCU).
While a national effort, the PIT count in Durham County is organized by Housing for New Hope, a Durham-based nonprofit that has organized the count the last three years
During a short training, volunteers were asked to be respectful of homeless people – referred to as “unsheltered neighbors” – and their encampments. Do the survey quickly so participants can get back to their evening. If people were not willing to participate or are asleep, just complete an observation survey of basic information like how many tents or the condition of the area being observed.
“People don’t realize that if you have a tent community, it’s still a community,” said Diggs.
Scattered trash appeared at the first location, including an abandoned cardboard sign asking for money. No tents or people, however. The volunteers drove two minutes west and again began trekking through dark woods. After a few minutes of walking, a tent with a light inside appeared.
“Hey y’all, we’re here for the PIT count,” called out a woman from the HEART team, part of the city of Durham.
Two men, both bearded, exit the tent. NCCU students Anisti Barrett and Deiona Stanley stepped up and began asking questions, jotting down the answers on a smartphone app. Questions about health, when last housed, that address, substance abuse, age, race, ethnicity, etc. The interview only takes a couple minutes
One of the men interviewed said he had been living there three years.
Barrett said she was comfortable conducting the interview and that the survey is important. “Most of us are one or two paychecks away from being homeless,” she said.
If not most, at least many. In Durham County, 31% of households (47% of renters and 18% of homeowners) have difficulty affording their homes, according to the website of the North Carolina Housing Coalition.
Homelessness in Durham County
In 2024, 405 people were counted as unhoused or unsheltered in Durham County according to Housing for New Hope. The actual number of unhoused or unsheltered people in Durham is probably higher.
“We will not get an accurate number,” said Russ Pierce, executive director of Housing for New Hope.
Instead, Housing for New Hope aims to see trends. Has the number of homeless clearly increased, like it did by an estimated 300% between 2018 and 2023? Has the need for services like mental health or substance abuse counseling changed?
“We want to learn directly from people who are experiencing homelessness,” Pierce said.
Diggs said people are usually pushed into homelessness by compounded factors plus the lack of a safety net. “Let’s say you lose your job, but you have family in the area and can stay with them,” Diggs said. “When you compound it with having a substance abuse issue, that can cause people to close their doors to you.”
A quick internet search brings up many entities – religious, nonprofit, government – that aim to assist people who are unhoused with food, a temporary place to sleep and treatment services (YELP has a listing for the best 10 homeless shelters in Durham). One nonprofit even supplies showers and haircuts.
While their efforts are commendable, Diggs says the problem is too big.
“I’ve talked to people who help unhoused communities,” she said. “It’s like an emergency room. If you overuse it, it is no longer effective. We don’t see homelessness until it hits massive numbers, instead of trying to address it early.”
Are there solutions or at least better ways to alleviate homelessness? Diggs suggests that nonprofits with overlapping specialties find effective ways to partner. That the city thinks innovatively about housing such as tiny homes, accessory dwelling units and splitting parcels. To acknowledge the connections between housing and education and housing and health.
Pierce agrees, adding connections to supportive services like access to health care – including mental health and substance abuse treatment – and access to living-wage jobs.
Preconceptions and Homelessness
Student Jessica Watkins had preconceptions about homeless people.
“Traveling to and from campus, I see a lot of homeless people,” she said. “They might appear to be on drugs or I think in my head that they don’t want to work.”
On Jan. 27, she interviewed a white male in his 40s at a gas station. “He was next going to a friend’s home, but he was living outside that home.”
At another gas station, there was a Black couple who were reluctant to talk, although they did acknowledge plans to sleep in a car that night. Later, Watkins and her colleagues were unable to get past a barrier near Hillsborough Road to a third encampment behind a building.
“Most talked about the cost of living and losing jobs from the pandemic,” Watkins said. “Some were sick and didn’t have access to affordable health care. It was a range of issues.”
Among the questions was if the interviewees had any experience with drugs. “None of the people I interviewed said they abused any substance of alcohol.”
Meanwhile, student Iana “Yana” Bakhmet and her group spoke to only one person, a Black woman in her 50s at the Streets of Southpoint mall.
“She was by herself with a lot of bags and belongings,” Bakhmet said. “She told us she has heart disease that prevents her from being employed. She talks slow. She would pause and rest. She’s been on the street for more than a decade. She said she had a master’s degree. I would never expect people like that to be on the street.”
Bakhmet, who is from Russia, said that while homeless is widespread there, it is less surprising.
“The average level of poverty in Russia is high,” Bakhmet said. “More people are poor. Here, you have wealthy communities.”