 How many people are experiencing homelessness in our community? At the September 9 business meeting with Mayor Kerry Thomson, Heading Home and more than 60 business representatives, businesses heard an estimate of roughly 150. Other publicly available measures have put the number above 500. One count may track people sleeping outside. Another may include people in shelters or everyone actively experiencing homelessness during a particular period. Geography, time periods, and definitions can shift the number further. But if people participating in the same community conversation don't understand why one number says roughly 150 and another says more than 500, that's a problem. We need common language around what we're counting and consistent statistics that allow us to track the same measures over time. Otherwise, almost any number can be used to argue that things are getting better or worse without giving the community a clear picture of either. Clear Goals Give the Numbers Meaning Reducing the number of people living unsheltered is one goal. Moving people into stable housing is another. Preventing people from returning to homelessness matters. So does reducing how long someone remains homeless. Reunification provides a good example. Mayor Thomson described efforts to reconnect people with family, treatment, shelter or other support systems when those resources exist elsewhere. At the September meeting, businesses heard that BPD and Stride had helped reunify 172 people in a little more than a year. That's what clearer measurement looks like: a defined strategy, a countable result and an outcome we can track over time. If it's working, it's also an area where the business community can consider helping strengthen the effort. Some Progress Is Visible Encampments are another example. At the September 9th meeting, Mayor Thomson said plainly that “we have no encampments in the city of Bloomington.” She described an approach that combines enforcement against outdoor encampments with shelter and services so people have an indoor alternative. That stands in contrast to the encampment that has remained on the County-owned Thomson property. The question isn't whether every jurisdiction must take the same approach. It's whether we can identify the goal and evaluate the result. What We Spend Reacting to the Problem Not all the money associated with homelessness is being spent addressing homelessness. A significant amount is spent managing its consequences after the fact. Bloomington Parks and Recreation has budgeted $250,000 for security in 2027, even after reducing that expense by more than 30 percent from 2026 levels. Economic and Sustainable Development identifies another $160,000 for mitigating impacts of the unhoused population. Businesses know those downstream costs well. WS Properties reported spending more than $500,000 on security across several Bloomington properties over five years, with annual expenses rising substantially from 2019. Security doesn't house someone. Cleanup doesn't connect someone with treatment. Repairing property damage doesn't prevent someone from becoming homeless. Those are dollars spent because the problem has already reached a business or public space. Police respond to calls. Public Works cleans and maintains public spaces. Employees spend time responding to situations far outside their normal responsibilities. We should distinguish between resources intended to address the problem and resources required to manage its consequences. If upstream strategies are succeeding, over time we should expect some of those downstream impacts to change too. Build a Common Scoreboard We don't need one magic number. We need a small set of measures everyone understands and tracks consistently. How many people are experiencing homelessness? How many are unsheltered? How many enter homelessness? How many move into stable housing? How many return? How long does that process take? How many are reunified? Then measure the community impact alongside them: encampments, calls for service, security needs and other costs government and businesses incur managing the consequences. That's a common scoreboard. We recently made a similar point while discussing the Bloomington Housing Authority's proposed housing acquisition: supporting a worthwhile goal should make us more interested in the plan, finances and outcomes, not less. The same applies to homelessness. The Chamber intend to continue convening businesses quarterly around these issues. Each time we meet, we should be able to ask: What has changed since the last time we were together? How many people moved into stable housing? How many were reunified? Are fewer people living unsheltered? Are encampments, calls for service and downstream costs changing? Common language. Consistent numbers. Clear goals. That's where accountability starts.
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