Up to 125 volunteers from across Austin, including staff and students from the University of Texas’s School of Social Work, participated in Austin’s 100 Homes Campaign Registry Week from November 7 through the 9.

ECHO, the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, created this campaign almost eight months ago as an aim to provide 100 homeless individuals across Austin with a permanent home and support system to improve their overall health and well-being as well as provide other opportunities, said Calvin Streeter, a professor in the School of Social Work. The campaign in Austin originated from the ongoing and national 100,000 Homes Campaign across the United States, and the national goal is to provide stable housing to 100,000 individuals before July 2013.

“After initial training on Sunday, volunteers fanned out in teams of 8-10 people in about 9 different areas at 4:30 in the morning each morning,” Streeter said. “We looked for people who were living unsheltered and asked them if we could interview and survey them using a Vulnerability Index used in the national campaign in hopes to have consistent gathered data.”

ECHO comprised a community report detailing their findings presented to the City Council last Thursday, Nov. 10. The report described that over the course of the three days, 289 people agreed to participate. Out of those people, 47 percent were assessed as being vulnerable, or are at risk of dying in the next five years if they remain on the streets. The vulnerable homeless population has been on the street an average of 7 years.

ECHO will continue to advocate for improved access to existing public and community housing stock, and further investment in affordable housing for the homeless in Austin. The volunteers took pictures as a first step in the process, but locating homes will be a lengthy process because they need funding and permission from the city council.

“The homeless population is an invisible population despite that they’re on the street everyday panhandling. Most will just drive by and choose not to see them,” Streeter said.

ECHO and its partners will continue the campaign until 100 homes have been provided.