After increasing more than threefold over the past 20 years, and after getting more public attention than it has received in years, the number of homeless people in Roanoke is down this year.

A head count conducted in January found 504 homeless people in the region's emergency shelters, recovery centers, jails and streets -- an 11 percent decrease from the year before.

The director of the Rescue Mission, the city's largest homeless shelter, called the results "an unexpected and a delightful surprise."

"But let's not get too excited about one snapshot," Joy Sylvester-Johnson said. "One snapshot doesn't tell you anything more about homelessness than what a snapshot of your family tells you about what's going on with your family."

This year's total of 504 is the average count taken daily during the third week of January at more than a dozen locations. Previous counts taken during the same time period have shown a 363 percent increase in homelessness over the past two decades, from 122 in 1987 to 566 last year.

With the homeless now accounting for 0.54 percent of its population, Roanoke is "dead in the middle" of the national norm for cities, said Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Cities where the problem is the worst, such as Washington, D.C., have homeless rates of about 1 percent, Berg said.

As the economy falters and gasoline prices soar, those who work with the homeless were at a loss last week to explain why at least one indicator of poverty declined by 11 percent in one year.

But they were reluctant to make too much out of the numbers.

"I'm glad that this past January showed some decrease, but the way I look at it, our work is never done," said Ellen Brown, director of families in transition at Total Action Against Poverty.

"With over 20 years of experience in dealing with homelessness and domestic violence, I can't just look at a decrease from one week in 2007 to one week in 2008 and say that means a lot to me," Brown said.

Results of the homeless census were released last week by the Roanoke Valley Alleghany Regional Advisory Council on Homelessness and the Council of Community Services, two umbrella groups that oversee services for the homeless in the region.

This year's census did more than just count the homeless. Through a 29-question survey given to 265 homeless people, it also provided some insight into who they are and how they got where they are today.

Of those surveyed, about 62 percent were male, nearly 65 percent were white and 28 percent were veterans. Nearly three out of four reported being homeless for less than a year. The most common reason for being homeless, cited by almost 19 percent of the respondents, was inability to pay the rent or mortgage.

The issue of homelessness in Roanoke has received more attention in recent months than it has for years.

In large part, that's because of what happened at a Nov. 5 meeting of the Roanoke City Council. After getting the results of the 2007 homeless census, some council members complained that the city gets stuck with caring for most of the region's homeless people, who are drawn to Roanoke by a network of shelters, soup kitchens and other services they don't find in their hometowns.

"It's about the fact that we're letting people come here because we're too daggone nice," Councilman Bev Fitzpatrick said.

However, this year's survey found that 53 percent of the respondents said they were living in Roanoke at the time they became homeless. Twenty-nine percent were from other Virginia localities; the rest were living in 17 different states when they first wound up on the streets.

Of those who became homeless elsewhere, the most-frequently cited reason for coming to Roanoke was to find a job.

The survey found that 46 percent of the homeless questioned had found full-time or part-time employment, at a median hourly wage of $7.88. Another 39 percent said they were actively looking for work.

Not long after the city council discussion of homelessness, Roanoke City Manager Darlene Burcham convened a meeting of the nonprofit agencies, faith-based organizations and volunteer groups that serve the population and challenged them to find new solutions to the problem.

To date, there are at least two separate plans.

In December, Mayor Nelson Harris touted a 10-year plan to end homelessness developed by the regional council on homelessness. Titled "A Place to Call Home," the 40-page plan calls for better information-sharing among those who serve the homeless, new ways to prevent homelessness, strategies to reduce the time people spend without a home and better regional cooperation in dealing with the issue.

Then, in February, a second report was released by an independent group made up of the Rescue Mission, TAP, Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare and Mental Health America of the Roanoke Valley.

While that report embraced many of the broader themes covered by the first one, it also called for some "quick-fix" solutions.

Among them: giving the homeless free bus passes, which would allow them to get from the Rescue Mission to the RAM House day shelter in a way that would eliminate what's been called their "daily migration" through downtown; installing self-cleaning toilets downtown to reduce the problem of some homeless people urinating in public because of the lack of available restrooms; and getting convenience stores in and around downtown to stop selling the cheap beer and fortified wine favored by the chronic homeless who often create problems in the City Market area.

While the homeless are perhaps most visible downtown, both plans emphasized the importance of addressing the broader issue in a number of ways, including increasing the availability of affordable housing.

In addition to releasing the census data last week, Council of Community Services also unveiled an annual business plan, which sets priorities for some of the broader goals in the 10-year plan.

The plan includes several steps to be taken toward the creation of a community housing resource center that would serve as a clearinghouse for all of the local services offered to the homeless. Representatives from Roanoke will visit two cities who already have the centers to get ideas before making recommendations by the end of the year, a draft of the plan says.

When measuring the success of any plan to address homelessness, it's important to look past a one-year fluctuation such as the most recent 11 percent decrease, said Berg of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"What you really want to see, over a several year period, is a consistent pattern of decline," he said.