Centre County completes ‘census of homelessness’ for 2020. Here’s what’s next
On one day every year, Centre County officials canvas the community to connect the area’s most vulnerable population with resources, creating what Director of Adult Services Faith Ryan calls “the census of homelessness.”
Staff from the county’s Office of Adult Services and housing nonprofits counted 128 unsheltered or homeless individuals on the streets and in shelters. The data comes from the 2020 Point-in-Time count, a requirement from the federal office of Housing and Urban Development for all Continuum of Care programs nationwide with goals of ending homelessness. This year, the count occurred on Jan. 23, with volunteers asking where people slept the night before.
“I think that’s a number people can visualize,” Ryan said. “That’s like five classrooms of kids.”
Last year, 129 individuals who were unsheltered or sheltered homeless were included in the PIT count.
Although Ryan references the PIT data when applying for funding, the day of canvassing creates an opportunity for staff to help people who might not know what housing assistance resources exist in Centre County.
Prior to the count, Ryan said Adult Services received 11 leads — the most since the PIT count started in 2017. Of those tips, two were reported by community members, seven were from local agencies, one from a municipality and one from an unsheltered homeless individual.
“We had 11 leads within five out of our six regions of Centre County,” she said. “I’ve never experienced that. Usually, it’s State College ... and the one person that we actually did find was in a region outside of the Bellefonte/State College area.”
Checking almost 200 locations, staff counted four unsheltered individuals, but received 65 leads on unsheltered homeless. To be unsheltered, a person has to have slept somewhere “not meant for human habitation,” such as a vehicle, street, park, sidewalk, bus station, tent or abandoned building.
Some of the leads staff received could be repetitive, Ryan said, but her office received 13 leads for individuals and families with housing instability — those could be people living with relatives, on someone’s couch or in a hotel. The count also identified 40 people who had slept in an emergency shelter — like Out of the Cold: Centre County — the night before and an additional 35 people who were in transitional housing.
The PIT count is an opportunity for outreach, Ryan and Centre County Housing Transitions Executive Director Morgan Wasikonis said. They said the count lets staff educate community members on how poverty can look different from what stereotypes suggest.
“It becomes very apparent that people have a specific picture in their mind of who you might be talking about that may be homeless,” Wasikonis said. “They envision that person, and they don’t realize until we start to say things like, ‘It could be somebody you work with, maybe they’re showering at work, their car is always in the parking lot, or maybe it could be somebody who just comes and hangs out on a regular basis’ ... It could be lots of things. We try to encourage them to think outside of the box of who might be experiencing housing insecurity.”
Rapid re-housing and permanent supportive housing programs are included in the count because people have to be homeless or unsheltered by definition, to qualify, Wasikonis said. The programs are part of the “housing first model” HUD is moving toward. This year, 49 individuals were counted through these programs.
“I think it really helps people see, probably not the whole scope of the problem, but they can see what we’re doing about it,” Wasikonis said.
Transitional housing programs offered by the Centre County Youth Services Bureau, Centre Safe and Housing Transitions give individuals time to figure out their next steps, Wasikonis said. While people who receive assistance through rapid re-housing and supportive housing programs sign their own leases, Wasikonis said the services offer additional infrastructure and assistance.
“I think it’s really important for people to know that we are addressing this problem in a lot of different ways, and we have a lot of tools to do it,” Wasikonis said. “We certainly want to have at least these resources to be able to provide for them because we’re helping 124 people who might otherwise be out on the street.”
