Freeman Toth wants to set the record straight.

Out of the 300 or so people he talks to who are experiencing homelessness in the Concord area, more than two-thirds do not use drugs. Three in four people are disabled, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act. And he’s seen homelessness rise for one population in particular – people over 55.

“People that have never experienced these hardships before and are not socially or emotionally equipped to deal with this level of poverty,” he said.

To help these individuals and reduce homelessness in Concord – where 316 people were identified as actively homeless in the month of September, according to state data – service providers need access to the same information and to speak the same language.

Toth, the street outreach and housing stabilization manager for the Community Action Program for Merrimack and Belknap Counties, might talk to someone one day who then visits the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness’s Resource Center the next week and has a similar conversation with Sierra Hubbard, the agency’s supportive housing program manager. At a panel conversation hosted by the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, Toth and Hubbard spoke about homelessness in the city, alongside Deputy Police Chief Barrett Moulton.

To Steve Duprey, a Concord real estate developer, a clear leader is required in the community’s effort to end homelessness.

“Somebody has to be in charge. It strikes me that we’ve got a lot of groups that collaborate and work well together but begs the question of who is calling the plays, who is in charge of this,” he said. “Is it the city’s responsibility? Is it the police department’s? Is it the Coalition’s? It it CAP’s?”

A new position will help define that. Through a partnership with the city’s steering committee to end homelessness and Granite United Way, a program manager will be employed for two years to coordinate the committee’s work.

The program manager will oversee the city committee’s action plan to solve homelessness in the community, which includes five action areas that range from increasing communication and outreach about their work to reducing homelessness by 100 people in 2025.

To staff the position, though, the two entities are looking to raise money to fund a salary of $75,000 a year.

It’s a step toward further defining the city’s involvement in solving homelessness, bolstering a committee that has been in place for over a decade but, until recently, only met quarterly to share updates rather than tackle defined priorities. Rosanne Haggerty, a nonprofit leader in the homelessness sector, has spearheaded these changes after she became chair of the committee in January.

The lack of accountability for homelessness often puts police in a hard place, said Moulton. His team receives emails and complaints about their lack of enforcement of people sleeping on streets downtown. At the same time, dismantling one encampment only shuffles crowds to the next spot.

“I am as frustrated as you are that I don’t have an answer. There isn’t anybody at least to hold accountable. There’s groups, there’s many different groups that are a function and work together,” he said. “It is kicking a can down the road.”

In May the city’s steering committee met with facilitators through New Hampshire Listens to define and set action items to guide its work. In addition to the program manager’s annual salary, the committee would like to raise money to fund community listening and engagement sessions, six more collaborative meetings, two homeless improvement summits and a contract with ProSocial World, a nonprofit that focuses on assisting groups with collaboration.

The total budget is $200,000 for the next two years.

To Freeman, current structures and systems make it harder for the Community Action Program or the Coalition to fully spearhead the work.

“We’re not the ones with the power to make those decisions,” he said. “We’re a supportive role.”

With the project manager to oversee and implement the committee’s priorities, that support should soon be synthesized to fit these new goals and collaboration.

“How do we coordinate outreach? How do we support coordinated prevention activities? How do we support apartment-finding efforts?” Haggerty said. “Just to streamline and coordinate the good work happening, being mindful of what the gaps are, and strengthening a collaborative approach.”