2013 Kern County Homeless Census

On any given night in the United States there are about 636,000 homeless persons. How do we know this? Because the Federal Government actually requires local jurisdictions across the country to go out and count the homeless.

After months of planning, recruiting and strategizing, the Kern County Homeless Collaborative started conducting it's biennial Homeless Census. This census is a point-in-time count that gives our community a snapshot of homelessness in our area. Beginning today at 4:00 p.m., volunteers and agency personnel started counting those folks spending the night in the shelters. You can read more about tonight's Shelter Count here.

Starting tomorrow morning, over 120 community volunteers and agency personnel will be dispatched throughout the County's 8200 square miles to accomplish the task of counting those that spent the previous night unsheltered. They will be looking for individuals and families who spent the previous night on the street, or in a car, or in a park, or in an abandoned building or in any other place not meant for human habitation.

So why do we go to all this effort? For a number of reasons.

• It helps us to determine the extent of homelessness in our community
• It helps us to gather important demographic information regarding the homeless (how many women are homeless? Children? How many homeless Veterans do we have? etc.)
• It provides an opportunity for direct contact with this segment of the population
• It helps us to track trends and strategically plan to target specific services and housing opportunities for the homeless
• It positions us to apply for as much as $4 million annually in federal funding to provide new transitional and permanent supportive housing projects.

No matter what our census tells us, there will always be those who were not counted but they exist on the edge of homelessness.

They are either doubled up or "couch surfing" with friends and relatives, or paying extremely high proportions of their limited resources for rent or motels just to have a roof over their head and a bed in which to sleep. Many are facing homelessness because of the effects of the foreclosure crisis and high unemployment rates in Kern County. Because of their current circumstances, these people are at imminent risk of homelessness.

I do know one thing, the agencies represented by the Kern County Homeless Collaborative do an amazing job working to address the issues involved. I am so thankful that I am able to work alongside so many wonderful caring people. I will post the results of the census as they become available.