‘Big gaps’ found in ‘unreliable’ homeless service audit data
“Homelessness is a number one issue for many residents in Multnomah County, and the auditor said it’s important to know if our tax dollars are being used effectively and that relies on good data.
In a recently issued memo, the Multnomah County Auditor’s office said ‘cthe Joint Office has reported on enrollment in programs/services as representing placement into housing — citing this as a significant internal control deficiency.’
Multnomah County auditor Jennifer McGuirk explained ‘we would’ve liked it to have really been clear. This is people newly placed into programs, not this is people placed into housing.’ She added, just because someone enters their program, this doesn’t mean they always end up in permanent housing.
Without that explicit transparency, the auditor estimates their data overstates their success rate of permanent housing for the homeless by 20%.
Meanwhile, the Joint Office estimates the data is off by 10%.
‘Either way, there’s still big gaps,’ McGuirk said.’