Tempe announced in early September that homelessness in the city dropped by nearly half since the summer of 2022.
Officials attributed the decrease in part to their work with local nonprofits, but some organizations said the city has been less than cooperative.
The statistic came from the Point-in-Time Count, an annual survey conducted on a single day in January by the Maricopa Association of Governments. Tempe also conducts an additional count every summer.
A press release said the city achieved the decrease by investing in the Homeless Outreach Program Effort team, creating an online form to report encampments for the team to provide outreach quicker. The city also offers a community hotline called the 24/7 CARE & HOPE Line and partners with nonprofits. Through its hotline, the city has received 9,000 phone calls in the past four years related to homelessness.
Jacqueline Webster, the deputy director of Tempe Community Health and Human Services, said in a written statement that the city helped about 3,000 people resolve their housing needs. Tempe also operates the Sue's Espacio temporary shelter.
"In the past four years, we have significantly expanded and enhanced resources to help people end their homelessness," Webster said in a written statement.
Shana Ellis, the executive director of ASU's Action Nexus on Housing and Homelessness and a former Tempe City Council member, said the city has done more in recent years to address homelessness than in the past.
"Tempe puts a lot more funding towards affordable housing and homelessness than it ever has," Ellis said. "I'm happy to see that there has been a shift into putting more resources into the city of Tempe in order to house people on the streets."
Ellis said she commends the city for conducting a summer count to more accurately evaluate the homelessness rate.
Webster and city spokesperson Susie Steckner emphasized Tempe's work with local organizations through its $1.1 million in grants to "43 different programs and services."
"We can't do this work alone," Steckner said. "Partnerships are vital."
However, some nonprofits say the city has made it harder for them to help people experiencing homelessness. Tempe and nonprofits like AZ HUGS and the Aris Foundation have clashed over the free use of public parks for providing food and other items to homeless people.
Austin Davis, the founder of AZ HUGS, was cited 34 times for feeding homeless people in city parks, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this year. After accepting a plea deal, Davis is still unable to enter a park or preservation area until May 2026, according to the lawsuit. He said the city has not been accommodating to groups like his.
"It's a great PR statement that they want to work with nonprofits," Davis said. "But we've got a lot of nonprofits that are on the ground doing the work daily, and they're making it incredibly difficult to do the work."
Katherine Kouvelas-Edick, the founder of the Aris Foundation, said the organization's applications for permits to use park space have been denied.
Kouvelas-Edick said she wants to work with Tempe but described navigating city bureaucracy as the foundation's biggest challenge.
"It's literally getting to be impossible to serve this population because of the city, and we've done everything right," Kouvelas-Edick said.
Davis and Kouvelas-Edick also said the results of the Point-in-Time count are inherently an underestimate. The Grand Canyon Institute, a think tank, wrote a policy analysis critiquing the methodology of the count.
"Logically, most people would realize that trying to find all the people living on the streets in a morning is virtually impossible, especially with the relatively small numbers of people doing the count," Dave Wells, the research director of the Grand Canyon Institute, wrote. "Yet, when these homeless census figures are cited, they are often not contextualized as being an undercount."
Steckner said in a written statement the city works with nonprofits daily "to provide programs and services benefitting all residents in Tempe, whether they are housed or unhoused."
Steckner also said the collaboration has included grassroots groups like Loaves and Fishes, D Squared Homes for the Homeless and the Salvation Army.
Ellis said she hopes to see Tempe and local nonprofits work out their differences.
"There just seems to be a difference of philosophy on how to serve people," she said. "I'm hopeful that they can figure that out, because it's about the people on the streets and getting them services."
Edited by Carsten Oyer, George Headley, Tiya Talwar and Sophia Braccio.
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