It will take nearly 1,600 volunteers to scour San Diego County by foot and car to get a head count of homeless people who are sleeping on the streets, in cars and shelters.
The annual census, known as WeALLCount, is scheduled for January 27, 2017. The nationwide initiative required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development determines where to direct federal funds to help the homeless.
“The count is one way we can look at trends annually because it’s taken at the same time every year during the last ten days of January,” said Dolores Diaz, executive director of the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless.
“It’s one way to measure whether homelessness is going up,” she said.
Other telltale signs are the rows of tents that line city streets on the outskirts of the East Village, or the lines of people trying to get a bed for the night at shelters across the county.
“We do help approximately 12,000 unique people, just in the last quarter,” Diaz said, “that presented for some type of service at one of the homeless service providers.”
Diaz said more volunteers 18 years or older are needed help with the count in North County regions. Those interested will receive training and can register online on the Regional Task Force on the Homeless website: www.rtfhsd.org.
Volunteers last year tallied nearly 8,700 homeless men, women and children — almost unchanged from 2015, but the number of people found sleeping outside was 19 percent higher.
