The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual, nationwide Point-in-Time (PIT) count of homeless people is aimed at “getting a handle” on the scope of homelessness in this country.

However, that task this month — conducted, for example, in Blair County on Jan. 21 — can best be categorized as barely meaningful.

How can a meaningful count be carried out during a miserable-weather month like this month has been? Homeless people, more visible to others when better weather conditions exist, have resorted to whatever means they have been able to find to protect themselves from the brutal conditions that much of this country has been dealt — not only the Southern Alleghenies region.

Thus, they were out of sight and “unavailable” at places where surveys were conducted as Mother Nature pummeled those places with unrelenting, dangerous force and fury. Only one’s imagination can suggest to where some of those unfortunate individuals retreated as conditions and temperatures reduced chances for survival or, at least, avoided frostbite to nearly zero.

U.S. Rep. John Joyce should be among the lawmakers questioning why such an unrealistic survey was allowed, rather than postponing it to a time when a better, truer estimate could be compiled.

The Mirror’s Jan. 23 article dealing with the Blair survey delivered the point that the Jan. 21 count here “does not come close to documenting the full number of people in Blair County who are struggling with homelessness, based on a report in November at a meeting … at which it was reported that 271 individuals were on the county’s ‘by name list’ at the time.”

According to the Jan. 23 article, during the few hours of the recent count, teams of volunteers here located a total of just 10 individuals in six or seven family groups who were staying outside.

That “10 total” would be laughable if it were not so serious.

All considered, HUD officials ought to be looking at themselves in a mirror and not liking what they see. Whatever financial outlay has been behind the survey, at least this year, was money wasted.

Contingency arrangements should be behind the survey to protect it from the kind of unrealistic numbers that the January 2026 survey produced.

The Center for Community Action, which conducted the Blair study that, besides Altoona, covered what was described as “a good portion” of the county, including Hollidaysburg, Tyrone and Duncansville, deserves no criticism regarding the survey. The local agency was carrying out work stipulated by HUD; the volunteers who did the legwork deserve praise for their dedication to the mission — even though it was a flawed mission.

Homelessness should not be such a big problem in a prosperous nation like the United States. Efforts must continue to deal with the problem more effectively, based on greater efficiency.

An unrealistic survey does nothing to advance that goal.

According to the Jan. 23 Mirror report, CCA will organize the collected — albeit unrealistic — data from the count before sending it to HUD’s Eastern Pennsylvania Continuum of Care program.

In about a month, that program will provide an analysis as part of HUD’s effort purportedly to gain a better picture of the homeless problem nationally.

The aim purportedly is to provide guidelines for sending money to programs designed to prevent homelessness, but how can guidelines be realistic when the information upon which they are based is far from realistic?

That’s the most compelling question.