Winter homeless count set for Jan. 28

An organizational meeting was held at noon, Tuesday, at Crawford House, 1117 N. West St., Nevada, for the Winter Point in Time Homeless Count. The annual event is held throughout Missouri to count the homeless in each area of the state to better inform decision makers of the scope of the problem.

Communities need accurate data to make funding recommendations to elected officials, determine the size and scope of homelessness at the local level, track local trends of homeless population, plan services and programs to appropriately address local needs, and measure performance of individual programs and the systems as a whole.

Nevada Housing Authority director Carol Branham is once again heading up the count.

"I would go to these meetings and they would show that there wasn't any data from Vernon County and there wasn't anyone in charge of the project here, so I got involved," Branham said.

The project involves volunteers going out into the community to various points and observing the situation. There are options on how the count is conducted.

"There can be a simple street count by observation, conducted without interviews. There can be a street count conducted with interviews, and there can be a service-based count where the homeless go for some service such as a soup kitchen or food bank, healthcare centers and other places that provide services the homeless might make use of.

Branham stressed that volunteers should conduct themselves safely and should avoid dangerous situations.

"We don't want someone to go knocking on the door of an abandoned building after dark, or put themselves in danger," Branham said. "If you walk up to someone who has set up a tent under a tree you are walking into their living room and we don't want that."

Branham said the number of homeless would surprise some people.

"In Region 9 they counted 460 homeless this summer, here there were 40," Branham said. "Region 9 is huge and for us to have nearly 10 percent of the homeless in this area is surprising."

Branham said that one of the problems in the area is the lack of emergency housing, which bothers her professionally.

"I've had people who needed housing and they expected me to get them in quickly, but like all bureaucracies we have a process we have to go through," Branham said. "They will say 'But you don't understand, this is an emergency,' but I can't put them ahead of someone who is already in the system or I will be up at the HUD office in Kansas City with my neck on the line, or I wouldn't be here at all."

Branham said even with a tight economy there was funding available and she wanted Nevada and Vernon County to get their share.

"Even in this tight economy there is money available for programs and we need to get the money down here," Branham said. "It upsets me that money we could use here goes up north.