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The Humboldt Housing and Homeless Coalition is seeking volunteers to participate in its biennial count of people experiencing homelessness locally.

The count is dependent on volunteer participation and tries to quantify the number of people living without shelter on a single night. The results of the count serve as the single best quantification of the local homeless population — data that is then used to qualify for funding and apply for grants.

“The more volunteers we have, the more people we can count, which will make more funding available to us,” Sally Hewitt, the senior program manager at the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services and co-chair of the Housing and Homeless Coalition, said in a press release.

Volunteers will gather in teams the morning of Jan. 23 in order to start counts in their assigned territories at 7:05 a.m. In addition to getting a head count, the volunteers will ask people where they slept the prior night and gather other demographic information.

Read the full press release copied below for more details and contact Robert Ward at 441-4035 or [email protected] to sign up. Read more Journal coverage of the point in time count here.

Volunteers needed for Point-in-Time count

The Humboldt Housing and Homeless Coalition (HHHC) is looking for volunteers to participate in the Jan. 23 Point-in-Time (PIT) count to connect with people experiencing homelessness in the community.

The count is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requirement. Numbers from the biennial count are used by the state of California to allocate funding to counties to address homelessness and housing.

“The more volunteers we have, the more people we can count which will make more funding available to us,” said Sally Hewitt, senior program manager at the Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services and co-chair of the HHHC. This information is also used by local planning departments and nonprofit agencies in applications for grant funding and planning.

Volunteers from local nonprofits and other community-based organizations have signed up, but more are still needed.

Volunteers will gather into teams early on the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 23, and start counting in their assigned territories at 7:05 a.m., finishing around noon. In addition to a head count, volunteers will ask people where they slept the night before and gather other general demographic information.

For more information about the PIT or to volunteer, contact Robert Ward at 707-441-5035 or [email protected]. Volunteers can also sign up at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8TSZQ5W. Training will be available the week before the count.

The HHHC is a coalition of housing advocates, businesses, funders, elected officials, services and housing providers, faith-based organizations and other community stakeholders working together to identify and address local housing needs. In Humboldt County, the HHHC is the lead organization for homeless issues and the federally designated Continuum of Care. For more information about the HHHC, visit its website at http://www.humboldthousing.org/.