OAKLAND — The fact there is a homelessness problem is no secret, but knowing just how bad the situation is may be key to making things better.
On Jan. 31, teams of volunteers will attempt to get an exact reading of how many people are homeless and living on Oakland’s streets through a biannual “Point in Time” survey.
Oakland last January declared homelessness at crisis levels, but “It’s important for that data to be as robust as possible, for the resources to address the need,” said Sara Bedford, director of Oakland’s Human Services Department.
The federal department of Housing and Urban Development requires the survey every two years as a condition for receiving federal funding.
The survey, to be overseen by the nonprofit Everyone Home, will start before dawn. The federal government will get preliminary numbers from the survey in mid-May. Everyone Home Executive Director Elaine de Coligny expects to publish the full report in June.
De Coligny estimates 500 volunteers will be needed countywide.
Anyone 18 or older who can dedicate five hours that morning can sign up to volunteer at www.surveymonkey.com/r/2017AlamedaPIT or contact Connie Chu, of Applied Survey Research, at 408-813-2419 or connie@appliedsurveyresearch.org.
More than 300 volunteers have stepped forward so far, said Everyone Home operations coordinator Alexis Lozano.
One-hour training courses will be offered before the count, but are not absolutely required, and volunteers can bring friends along as long as they’re at least 18, she said. But “it’s better if they register” so that preferences such as where the volunteers want to work can be accommodated, Lozano said.
For the first time in Alameda County, the survey will use people who are themselves homeless as team guides to try accurate numbers.
The homeless guides also will survey people in the following weeks to collect more information on their circumstances, such as how long they’ve been homeless, where they were living when they became homeless and what kind of housing would work best for them.
Surveys have found the county’s homeless population holding relatively steady since 2009 at 4,000 to 4,500, down from 4,800 to 5,100 in the previous three surveys. But “the perception clearly, for many of us, is that these numbers are growing,” Bedford said.
“The largest concentration of homeless people is in Oakland and Berkeley,” de Coligny said.
Those cities will get the largest allocation of surveyors, with 220, or almost half, deployed to Oakland, Lozano said.
Previous estimates have relied to a great extent on surveys done at places such as dining rooms, food banks and shelters, de Coligny said. This year, there will be more emphasis on the street count, which will require an additional 100 volunteers.
The homeless population will only be counted, not identified or interviewed. But with the aide of the homeless guides who are familiar with the landscape, de Coligny expects a more accurate tally. They are more likely to know how many people live in an encampment, or in individual tents, even, and of where those tents and encampments are.
Because this will the first time homeless people have helped in the count, “we won’t necessarily be able to compare the results to previous years,” de Coligny said.
Although most data collection will be done by volunteers, guides will earn $15 per hour, paid that same day, de Coligny said. The teams will meet 4 a.m. at four or five spots around the city, and do a combination of walking and driving together, de Coligny said.
“I think it’s going to be really powerful,” she said.
“People who care about the issue and people experiencing it are going to spend several hours together. There’s nothing like human contact and conversation to keep the fires burning, so to speak, and keep it from getting too abstract. I’m excited about this change in policy and what it will reveal,” she said.
De Coligny said she has participated in the last several counts. “It’s demanding, to get up to volunteer at 4 a.m. on a cold night in January,” but, citing the “resiliency, dignity and generosity of people who are forced to live on the street,” she said, “it’s one of the most inspiring things I get to do in my job.
“In general, people find it eye-opening and rewarding.”
Contact Mark Hedin at 510-293-2452, 408-759-2132 or mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com.
