Before sunrise, volunteer after volunteer filed into the county’s administrative building to check-in for their shift, receiving a green “Everybody Counts” T-shirt and a tote full of snack packs and hygiene bags to hand out to the people living on the street they were tasked with canvassing during Tuesday’s launch of this year’s point in time count.
The biennual count is required by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, helping determine the number of people who are homeless and in which communities they are gathering, but also more about who they are and their needs. A display back at the count’s command center showed a live tally of the surveys completed, noting how many youth, seniors and veterans had already been approached.
The count of those living on the streets began at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday and will continue through Thursday, with teams heading out in the early morning and in the evening. On Monday night, Jan. 22, teams of volunteers canvassed people staying in emergency shelters, or other forms of temporary housing.
Organizers of the count had already pinpointed “hotspots” in the region where unhoused residents are known to gather, information that was put together with the input of local law enforcement and outreach workers. Volunteers were grouped in teams and headed out on Tuesday to zones in central OC –other areas will be canvassed Wednesday and Thursday.
Yolie Negrete, a program supervisor at City Net, led her team of two volunteers through their assigned route in downtown Santa Ana, scanning the streets for unhoused residents.
Some of the people they encountered were bundled up in layers of sweaters, scarves and gloves against the morning’s unforgiving cold, but some only had a small blanket.
All those who agreed to be surveyed were asked, “Were you unhoused on the night of Monday, Jan. 22?”
Abraham, 62, was asleep when one of the team members, Katherine Ibarra, an eligibility tech at the Garden Grove Regional Center, approached him with the survey. He had been living at a shelter for two years, but has spent the last three months on the street, he said.
While at first he bristled at being approached, his tension eased and his shoulders relaxed throughout the course of the survey.
Abraham, who gave no last name, wore a trash bag over his clothes to protect from the rain.
“You just get wet. There’s nowhere to go,” he answered when asked if he had been able to find a place over the weekend to get out of the recent storm.
Monique Ybarra, of Anaheim, was convinced by her friend to volunteer for the first time. Having previously worked for a homelessness organization, Ybarra said she had looked forward to seeing what it was like to do outreach in the community.
“I’ve never done outreach engagement like that. I’ve always just been in the office, so it was nice to be out there,” Ybarra said. “Being outdoors and feeling how really cold it is out there for them, that was pretty heartbreaking.”
E.P., who would only provide her initials, said living on the streets as a transgender woman has been especially difficult, and at times violent.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, E.P. lost her job after contracting the virus twice, she said. Getting back on her feet was hard, but finding a place to rent that she could afford on her own was even harder.
E.P. said she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and having a safe place to lay her head at night would go along way in helping her address her needs. But she would also rather live on the street than experience the rampant discrimination she’s faced in shelters, she said.
“I’ve experienced several hate crimes out here. I’ve been beat many times,” E.P. said. “Our lives are at risk 24/7. We take it day-by-day. There is no long-term goals here.”
E.P. said she has lost hope with getting any type of assistance from local government.
“That’s the reality for us, transgender people. It’s more difficult. We need to try three times as hard to get help than other people,” she said. “We ask for help, but we’re just always pushed aside.”
Jorge Solorzano a health coach at CalOptima Health, the county’s public healthcare provider, shared similar frustrations. Although this was his first time volunteering for the county’s point in time count, Solorzano said he has experience working with people struggling with homelessness. Many of his clients are unhoused, and his biggest frustration, he said, is hearing the needs of his patients but having no solutions he can point them too, especially when it comes to housing.
“They have needs, and the only way to improve is with housing and food, but I can’t give them that,” Solorzano said.
Solorzano was among the volunteers who responded to the county’s call for people who wanted to learn more about the homeless population while helping local officials gather the point in time count’s information. Many said they would come back to help again in two years.
It was also Griffin Dooley’s first time volunteering. He is a community outreach worker for the city of Costa Mesa and said it was nice to see the collaboration between so many community partners working toward a mutual goal.
Officials said at least 1,000 volunteers has been marshaled for the four-days of counting.
“I would like to personally thank everyone who has come out here. Thank you for participating,” Third District Supervisor Don Wagner said. “It’s very rich and rewarding. We do sincerely thank everyone who is helping us with a serious social problem here in Orange County.”
U.S. District Judge David Carter, who has played an instrumental role in pushing local leaders to better address the county’s homeless issue, also stopped by Tuesday morning to volunteer. He said he felt immense gratitude and was humbled to see so many community members come together to help the county with the canvassing.
“The homelessness issue is solvable and manageable,” Carter said, adding that solving the issue will take community togetherness. “We are on a very good path.”
The point in time count will continue through Thursday. Doug Becht, director of the county’s Office of Care Coordination, said his team will go through every single survey taken, combing through the data, making sure there are no duplicates and preparing the information to share with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and local policy makers.
The results should be available by early May, he said.
