‘Celebrate with caution.’ One of Lexington’s homeless counts shows good news
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- Catholic Action Center count records 5.5% decline to 2,868, reasons debated
- City January federal count shows 32% rise since 2020 and 100 more since 2024
- Task force plans permanent shelter; temporary winter shelter opens Nov. 1 on Versailles Road
The Catholic Action Center and a host of volunteers spread out across Lexington for more than 12 hours Aug. 27 to count the number of people without shelter or facing homelessness.
This year, the results are cautiously positive: a 5.5% decline from last year in the number of people without any shelter or living in provisional housing.
The total of 2,868 people — compared with 3,034 last year — could have gone down because programs are working. It could also be due to House Bill 5, which criminalized homelessness and made people harder to find, said Ginny Ramsey, executive director of the Catholic Action Center, which provides shelter off Eastland Road.
“We celebrate with caution,” Ramsey said at a news conference Thursday. “We have a lot of work to do, and it’s good that it’s getting better.”
The numbers are different from the city’s annual count, which is done in January according to strict federal guidelines. Ramsey’s count includes temporary situations, such as staying with friends, or people in hospitals, jails or recovery programs.
The city’s count has shown a 32% increase in homelessness since 2020, and an increase of 100 people since January 2024. A study done in the spring showed Lexington was way behind on shelter beds, leading to a new task force on building a new permanent shelter. That group starts meeting this month.
A temporary winter emergency shelter will open Nov. 1 on Versailles Road.
“Having a new permanent shelter is a way to get more people into programmatic help and into housing,” said Urban County Council member Dave Sevigny, who attended the press conference. It would be operated by an outside group.
Many of the volunteers in the Catholic Action count are part of the Street Voice Council, themselves without housing and wise to the different ways people survive on the streets.
Terrence Tompkins is one of them. At 70, he spent more than a decade working at the VA Hospital, but is now homeless.
“I want to find a place to live, and then a way to repay the city back,” he said. “I don’t mind doing what I can to help the city. Trust me, it’s hard.”
As Ramsey said, there’s good news. But there’s also more hard work ahead.
“We have to be forward thinking,” she said. “Together we can all make a difference, step by step, day by day.”
