Social workers, volunteers tally the homeless
North County Times – Escondido,CA,USA
Starting well before daybreak, a contingent of coastal counters coordinated
by Encinitas-based Community Resource Center, fanned out from Oceanside to
Del …

NORTH COUNTY —- Social workers and volunteers conducted a countywide tally of homeless people Friday, but worried that stormy weather may have skewed the count.

Starting well before daybreak, a contingent of coastal counters coordinated by Encinitas-based Community Resource Center, fanned out from Oceanside to Del Mar with flashlights and clipboards.

Their search took them to canyons, alleys, beaches, parks and anywhere else that homeless people often sleep.

During a wet and windy daybreak, however, many of the places where homeless people are known to congregate were vacant.

“It’s just a shame because it’s an underrepresentation,” said Caity Riddle, the center’s program manager of client services. “The numbers are going to be skewed.”

Despite the stormy weather, teams of counters still found people tucked under freeway bridges and overhangs in downtown Encinitas. They found tents —- which they did not disturb —- on city-owned property behind a shopping center on Santa Fe Drive.

The enumerators scratched hatch marks on a chart to represent anyone they thought to be homeless. They also counted tents and people who appeared to be day laborers.

Across North County’s inland communities, Interfaith Community Services coordinated a similar count.

Overseeing the entire effort is the nonprofit Regional Task Force on the Homeless. That agency and the county government use the data in regional funding applications to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The department’s Supportive Housing Program provides $8 million to $15 million yearly to San Diego county, according to the regional task force.

When considering funding applications, government authorities demand single-day “point-in-time” homeless counts, task force Executive Director John Thelen said Friday.

The so-called “street count” excludes people sleeping in shelters.

The task force might organize another count in July when people living on the streets would be easier to find, he said.

“People wouldn’t be hidden under the bridges as much (with a July count),” Thelen said. “Today people may have left their normal sleeping spots to find some cover. We probably missed a lot. I’m sure the count’s going to be a lot lower than last time.”

Last year’s tally concluded that 800 people and families were living on the streets of North County and 1,200 more people were housed in shelters

Computing the data from Friday’s count will take up to three months, Thelen said.

In Encinitas, Beverly Ahlburg, supervisor of the resource center’s domestic violence program, searched for homeless people at Moonlight Beach and Cottonwood Creek Park.

With case manager Stephanie Jones in the passenger seat, the center staffers drove to shopping centers to look for people huddled behind grocery stores. The search often was fruitless.

“I would hope they would do the count again on a day that’s dry,” Ahlburg said.

On Encinitas Boulevard west of Interstate 5, however, Ahlburg and Jones found dozens of predominantly Latino men who they tallied as day laborers.

The enumerators were instructed not to lift blankets, open tents or disturb the people they were looking for. The count took place during the early morning because that is when homeless people are thought to be stationary.

Riddle and Emily Ramm, a resource center intern, brought their search to a boarded-up apartment building on F Street.

Camped beneath a stairwell were two people, and Riddle alerted Ramm by raising two fingers. The young man and woman stirred, however, and Riddle apologized for disturbing them.

Daisy Burns and her companion, who gave only the name Rabbit, said they were making their way to Tucson, Ariz., but had no money. They said they had been drifting for two years, she from Toronto and he from Chicago.

Rabbit said that their spirituality was a driving and protective force.

“We create energy fields that keep us safe,” Rabbit said.