Volunteers take to streets for county’s annual homeless count

The volunteers wore bright green vests, held flashlights and were followed by Metropolitan Police Department patrol cars in the dark early hours of Wednesday as they dispersed throughout the valley.

More than 200 volunteers took to the streets of Clark County on foot and in vehicles to conduct the annual homeless count. While some census subjects slept wrapped in blankets, others were awake and stared at the volunteers as they walked by with clipboards in hand.

Marcus A. White was a first-time volunteer.

“My heart is saddened,” he said of the homeless individuals he saw with medical needs. “Many homeless people probably have never had access to medical care.”

The count was visual and included homeless people staying in emergency shelters and in homeless housing programs. In the coming weeks, officials will conduct surveys and interviews as well.

County officials use the information collected to apply for federal funds to help reduce homelessness and to see where the region stands in its efforts to get people into safe housing.

Southern Nevada received more than $10 million in federal grants for homeless programs last year, according to county officials.

The local jurisdictions and the county are picking up the costs for this year’s count, which falls on an odd year and is a federal unfunded mandate, said Tim Burch, director of the county Department of Social Services. The budget for this year’s count is about $22,000, which will mostly pay for compiling data in a report for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The report will be released to the public in the spring.

Last year, the county was one of 16 places that received $100,000 from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to fund the homeless count. Burch said he didn’t expect this year’s limited funding to affect the count as volunteers followed the same methodology.

All volunteers received an hour of training before the count, he said.

Burch didn’t want to speculate on what findings this year’s count might bring. He said he prefers to focus on the five-year trend, which fell to 9,417 homeless individuals in 2014 from 13,338 in 2009.

“The trend line continues to go down over time,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “Based on the work that we are doing, the number will continue to go down.”

The volunteers gathered at five different urban centers, including Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada in downtown Las Vegas, Walnut Recreation Center in the northeast county, Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in the west, Cambridge Recreation Center in the central county and the Henderson Multigenerational Center.

Last year’s count took place in January and found 9,417 homeless individuals, which represented a 28 percent increase in Southern Nevada’s homeless population compared with the previous year.

The 2013 Southern Nevada Homeless Census &Survey had indicated that there was a 22 percent decrease in the number of people living on the streets and in emergency shelters in Clark County over the past two years. The survey found that the number of homeless people in 2013 had decreased to 7,355 from 9,432 in 2011.

Assemblyman Tyrone Thompson, D-North Las Vegas, who led White’s team, said the group counted a little more than 100 homeless individuals early Wednesday.

“There’s definitely a need,” he said. “We have to ensure that we do the best count possible.”

Metro officer David Cienega said about 40 officers helped ensure the volunteers’ safety.

Twenty states saw an increase in the number of homeless people between 2013 and 2014, but Nevada experienced the largest surge with 1,733 more single individuals, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released late in 2014.

Contact Yesenia Amaro at yamaro@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440. Find her on Twitter: @YeseniaAmaro.