Stanislaus Community System of Care and the Stanislaus Homeless Alliance are looking for volunteers to assist with their point-in-time count of the county’s homeless population.
Required by the Department of Housing of Urban Development to conduct the count once every two years, Stanislaus County conducts the count yearly. This requires between 250 and 300 volunteers, according to Maryn Pitt, who serves as the volunteer chair of the Turlock, Modesto, Stanislaus County Continuum of Care.
“We provide training for the volunteers to become familiar with app we use and on safety,” said Pitt. “We never send counters out by themselves. They’re always with at least one other person. We want to keep everybody as safe as they can be.”
The count will take place on the evening of Jan. 29, and again on the morning of Jan. 30. The deadline to register as a volunteer is today.
The annual count produces data critical to determining the scope of the problem and the amount of funding available to communities to develop housing and supportive services for people moving from homelessness to independent living.
Last year, the count detailed that there were 2,052 unhoused persons in Stanislaus County, with 22 of those in Ceres. That was slightly less than the 2,091 count which took place on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.
Modesto had the largest number of homeless surveyed at 1,622 people. Turlock, the second largest city in the county, recorded 201 homeless people. Ceres, the third largest city, had 22.
HUD estimated that more than 770,000 people in the U.S. were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2024, an 18 percent increase from 2023. HUD also found that there were nearly 190,000 homeless people in California in January 2024.
“About a quarter of the nation’s entire homeless population lives in California,” said Pitt. “That has a lot to do with the cost of housing here in the state.”
On the first evening PIT count, teams will focus on overnight shelters. The following day, they’ll spread out though various sectors of county cities and towns to count the unsheltered.
“The last two years, we’ve gone from having greater population of sheltered than unsheltered,” said Pitt. “We’re hoping this year it marks a trend and not just a two-year blip. It tells that we’re doing a really good job with outreach and engagement.”
Team members hand out small, brightly colored, string backpacks that have some necessities, such as socks, water and energy bars. The backpacks not only help to identify those who have already been counted, it also serves as something of a peace offering.
“There’s a level of trust that sometimes needs to be established,” said Pitt.
The goal is to register 260 volunteers. To participate, visit https://stanislaus.pointintime.info/ to register. A mandatory training is required and persons may select the city where they wish to count. Also register by calling at 209-558-2961 or e-mailing csoc@stancounty.com.
“The PIT Count is one of the ways we measure progress in effectively ending homelessness in our community,” said Maryn Pitt, chairwoman of the Community System of Care. “We need volunteers all over Stanislaus County to make this happen and ensure that we reach and interview as many people experiencing homelessness as possible.”
Every year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires communities to count the number of people experiencing homelessness in counties across the nation. It’s a snapshot in time, an unduplicated count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January.
