Both homeless assistance providers and the Houston/Harris County community at large often speculate about the geographic origin of the local homeless population. Details on the source of the homeless community are important to track patterns of service use and quantify the effectiveness of targeted homeless outreach, thereby allowing Houston providers to create an increasingly coordinated and efficient delivery of prevention and homeless services.

This study analyzed the ZIP codes of the last permanent addresses of 3,631 homeless persons that were recorded when people who are homeless were registered in the Homeless Management Information System (―HMIS). The data was recorded by 47 service providers in Harris County during the Coalition’s most recently completed fiscal year (July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011).