Still Time to Volunteer to Help Point-in-Time Homeless Count

There is still time to sign up to take part in a worthy effort to help fight homelessness―the Jan. 26 annual Point-in-Time Count!

Monday, Jan. 23 is the deadline to sign up to help in the count, which is scheduled to take place from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 26.

Each year, the Point in Time Count begins our region’s effort to count the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night of the year—to talk with them, collect information to help us understand the scope of the homeless problem, people’s circumstances and their needs. This count also helps our region apply for federal and state funding to help serve this vulnerable population and measure our efforts to reduce homelessness.

So far, more than 200 County employees have signed up, but with one of the largest counties in the country, organizers are looking for lots more help in several locations. Last year, more than 1,400 volunteers helped in the count.

You can be part of that effort by volunteering a few hours of your time—paid for and on the clock, thanks to approval by the County Board of Supervisors.

To take part, County employees must receive the OK from their supervisors, and then register at the “We All Count, Annual Homeless Census” website.

If you’d like to help, review the FAQs. Then get approval from your supervisor via the supervisor approval form. From there, you just sign up.

After you have signed up, you will receive an email receipt for this event. In the email there will be a link to a training for you to review from The Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which is leading the local point-in-time effort with the WeALLCount campaign.

Volunteers will be asked to arrive at their deployment locations by 3:45 a.m. to give themselves time to become familiar with a mobile counting app that helps us conduct a more accurate count and receive your count area map.

The 2023 count, as directed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will again entail an “engaged” survey-based approach, where people on the streets will be surveyed as they are encountered, rather than just an observational count.

This will be the ninth year that County employees have volunteered to take part in the count. The Regional Task Force on Homelessness reported last year that the 2022 count found 8,427 people experiencing homelessness—a number they said should be considered a minimum—across the county, a 10% increase from the 2020 count. No count was taken in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of the public can also join the count. If you know family or friends who would like to participate, they can sign up to volunteer.

So, if you’d like to help make a difference in addressing this important issue, please volunteer.