Kathy Wahto wishes she could refer every homeless person to safe housing on the spot when volunteers set out next week to take a tally of people who lack adequate shelter.
“That’s not possible,” Wahto, Serenity House of Clallam County executive director, said this week.
“But that’s why we’re counting.”
Led by Serenity House in Clallam County and Olympic Community Action Programs in Jefferson County, numerous volunteers from social service agencies, churches, other organizations and the homeless community will conduct a “point-in-time” count of the North Olympic Peninsula’s homeless population.
The data they collect will help when they advocate for more services and funds to meet people’s basic needs, the advocates say.
On Wednesday, groups will take to the streets and roads in Port Angeles, Sequim, the West End, Port Townsend and East Jefferson County, asking the homeless to complete a short survey that will keep their identities anonymous but reveal information about their situations.
“The goal is to not get a duplicated count, but to get good information about why they’re homeless, how they became homeless, what their circumstances are,” said Vanessa Brower, OlyCAP’s director of housing services for both counties and Jefferson County’s Continuum of Care coordinator.
Also in shelters
The count will include people not just on the streets but those living in emergency shelters, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing, and those visiting food banks and soup kitchens.
In Jefferson County, volunteers will use maps of Port Townsend and the east county that are marked with places where someone would likely encounter homeless populations, based on input from service providers, law enforcement, the parks department and others, Brower said.
