Volunteers were out early this morning counting the number of homeless people in San Diego County. The official report is due later this month. KBPS reporter Katie Orr has details.
About 300 people spread throughout the county to conduct the count. Walt Sandford is the Executive Director of the Regional Taskforce on the Homeless . The group sponsors the annual survey. He says preliminary numbers will be available toward the end of February. And Sandford says he’s expecting to see an increase.
Sandford: Well we heard anecdotally from the San Diego Police Department that they had been seeing double the number of homeless that they typically see in the Downtown area this time this year in comparison to this time last year. So I anticipate getting reports back from the folks who counted the Downtown area that the numbers would be higher.
Sandford says reports from La Jolla show an increase in that area as well. He says the number of homeless people in San Diego County rose nine percent between 2006 and 2008.
Katie Orr, KPBS News.
