How many times have you become homeless over the past three years?

How many times have you become homeless over the past three years?

What situations have caused you to become homeless?

Where did you stay last night?

These are the questions that volunteers posed to homeless people throughout Clallam and Jefferson counties — and across the state — last week as they conducted a point-in-time survey of the homeless.

Through street counts, surveys at food banks, shelters, on tribal reservations, at motels and in numerous other locations, the census-takers collected information in the second effort of its kind on the North Olympic Peninsula that will aid in seeking grants and other resources to provide more services.

It’s too soon to tell how many people were counted or what information was collected, but census organizers expect the numbers to rise from the 993 homeless contacted in October 2003.

“I guess there’s no doubt in my mind that we’re having better contacts and better information coming back to us,” said Kathy Wahto, executive director of Serenity House of Clallam County, the county’s Continuum of Care coordinator and leader of its count.

In Jefferson County, more people will likely be reflected in the count because census-takers tried to establish who is at risk of becoming homeless, said Silvia Arthur, Continuum of Care coordinator for Olympic Community Action Programs, the lead agency for the Jefferson count.

Expanded to low-income

Unlike in the 2003 count, census-takers this year also looked at low-income people who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, she said.

In Jefferson, counters scanned the streets and forests for the homeless. They used city and county maps to better identify potential locations for camping and individual temporary shelter concentrations in the county, said Vanessa Brower, OlyCAP’s director of housing services.

The volunteers also relied on suggestions from Port Townsend city police, the county Sheriff’s Office and the county parks department.