Justice
Is There a Better Way to Count the Homeless?
I hit the streets for HUD’s Point-in-Time homeless count to help get a snapshot of Oakland’s growing unsheltered homeless population. But one thing was missing.
On January 30, I woke up before dawn to drive around East Oakland and count all the homeless people I could find.
I was one of the 600 volunteers who participated in the 2019 Point-in-Time (PIT) homeless count for Alameda County, California. The PIT count is a nationwide effort to tally the number of unsheltered Americans living on the street on a single night in January. It began in 2003 and happens every two years. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities to complete the count in order to receive federal funding for homeless programs.