More than a thousand people are experiencing homelessness in Northern Kentucky.
The Northern Kentucky Homelessness Working Group collected data for 11 months before releasing a report this week.
Covington is the only city in the region that has shelters for people experiencing homelessness.
Kim Webb runs the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky there, which has 32 beds. She says community members and local officials should come to the shelter and answer the phones to get a better understanding of the crisis in the region. "There is nothing that will tug at your heart - that will put a voice to a data point, a statistic - then answering the phone and telling someone there are no options in Northern Kentucky right now," she says.
Data from the report doesn't include information from three shelters in Covington or people experiencing homelessness in the area who never went to shelters.
In the three-county region, more than 50% of people experiencing homelessness have a disability.
Covington Mayor Joe Meyer says Northern Kentucky's weak public policy capacity is a challenge for the region. "It’s my hope with the leadership of the county and some of the regional advocacy groups that they'll start to look at these more holistic terms," he says. "Instead of a series of independent ad-hoc approaches to homelessness you have a more systematized approach."
One of the recommendations from the report is that the region hire a coordinator who can create a plan on how Northern Kentucky can move forward.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer'sreporting, city officials are looking to enforce harsher requirements on shelter operations. A Covington spokesman says the proposed standards are still being worked on and there isn't a set date for presentation to the commission.