Eugene and Springfield, and indeed Lane County, have an unfavorable reputation for having a high number of homeless people in the population, but the exact number of homeless people has never been collected. That’s about to change.
The county’s first street count – including homeless people with and without regular shelter – was administered Thursday afternoon from 2 – 5 p.m. on behalf of the Lane County Human Services Commission. The results will be announced next week.
Previous counts of the homeless in Lane County have been collected once every year for the past 12 years, but the number usually applies to people who are living in shelters and not to people without an indoor place to stay, said Nancy Waggoner, a coordinator with the commission. The last count in 2006 found 1,246 homeless people.
The one-day street count had three main objectives:
-Discover how many homeless people do not use shelters.
-Find where they live in the community.
-Identify trends among the homeless population.
As an incentive to participate, homeless people were given free food and allowed to participate in raffles, which offered prizes such as gift certificates and vouchers for a three-day stay in a motel.
Counts were conducted at four locations in the metro area, including St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County in Eugene and at Catholic Community Services in Springfield. Elsewhere in Lane County, local non-profit agencies and clinics to groups such as the U.S. Forest Service were asked to help count, Waggoner said.
At Eugene-based Looking Glass New Roads, which specializes in providing services to homeless youth between ages 16-21, free pizza and sodas were offered in addition to prizes as an incentive to participate in the count. Program supervisor Chris Mirabel said he noticed a handful of new faces at the service.
Eric Van Houten, program director for Looking Glass New Roads, said word of mouth was the main way of spreading the message about the count.
“I don’t expect the number to be 100 percent accurate, but it is a number to start with,” Van Houten said.
One homeless woman named Trish said she thought there are more people living on the streets than in shelters, since there are many who refuse to go to them for various reasons. She said she usually sleeps under a bridge in a park instead of going to one of the youth shelters.
“A lot of us do sleep out every night,” Trish said. “I think a free motel stay would be awesome.”
The street count is also a new requirement for grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides about $2 million for homeless services in Lane County.
Van Houten said the money from HUD helps supplement funding for staff and it funds a six-month addition to an 18-month transitional housing program that his service offers.
Overall, Oregon ranks 12th in the number of homeless people in the United States, with an estimated 16,221 homeless people in the state, according to a 2007 report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
About 1,200 people in Lane County live on the streets or in temporary shelters, according to Project Homeless Connect for Lane County.
Homeless people in Lane County can also get free services through Project Homeless Connect, which is offering free services from medical care, haircuts, and housing help to clothing and hot food and drinks. The event will be held Feb. 8 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Lane County Fairgrounds.
Contact the city, state politics reporter at [email protected]