Helping the homeless

GOSHEN COUNTY – Last week, volunteers across Wyoming recorded the number of homeless individuals and families living in their communities.

The annual Point-In-Time Count, held this year on Jan. 26, is intended to “produce an unduplicated count on a single day of the people experiencing homelessness,” according to a press release from the Wyoming Department of Family Services. The count includes residents in both sheltered and unsheltered populations and is intended to take place in every Wyoming county and incorporated municipality.
“This effort is vital and helps us both serve the homeless population of Wyoming and identify the gaps in services,” said Karla McClaren, homeless program manager at Wyoming DFS said. The Point-In-Time Count gives homelessness programs a view of how they are performing across the state, shows who is being served by the programs already in place, and reveals what adjustments need to be made to services available according to need, she said. The count also helps lay the groundwork to develop policies and make planning decisions at the state level.
Locally, former Point-In-Time Count lead Kory Sillerud said a lack of volunteers may prevent Goshen County’s homeless population from being accurately represented.
“The count is really about how many people are homeless in each state – Goshen represents a very small portion of that number,” Sillerud explained. “The (Wyoming Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD) … won’t post the results for this year for some time, as the (information) is still being compiled and entered. The more volunteers that are available, the more likely the area can get an accurate count, since there are many facets of homelessness that cannot be counted with just one or two individuals in such a small amount of time and such a large area to cover.”
Volunteers are required to follow specific rules when counting, including identifying individuals experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness.
Sheltered homeless include those living in emergency shelters, such as domestic violence shelters; any hotel, motel, or apartment, with voucher arrangements paid by a public or private agency because the person or family is homeless; transitional housing, including HUD-funded Rapid Re-housing Demonstration Grant programs; and – new this year – safe havens.
Unsheltered homeless are individuals staying in parks, under bridges, in temporary encampments, vehicles, etc., or someone who lives in a home without heat or water.
The rules for the annual Point-In-Time Count “are pretty strict, because people are being counted by other methods, and if we count those people, then there is a duplicated count which would not accurately reflect homeless in our region,” Sillerud said. “The best way to get an accurate count is to have volunteers who are trained.
“Finding volunteers has been a challenge – even with advertising to local groups and through the newspaper. We had a couple of volunteers last year and no volunteers this year or the year before last year.”
This Point-In-Time Count is led by the Wyoming Homelessness Collaborative and Continuum of Care, a program affiliated with HUD. Because grants are rewarded based on overall numbers and accuracy, statewide counts play an important role with programs funded by HUD.
Anyone who is interested in volunteering for the count or even leading the local endeavor in the future should contact Sillerud at (307) 532-2191, extension 236.