by Jeannie Curry
Staff Writer

At 2 a.m. with temperatures hovering in the upper 20s, it’s hard to imagine spending an hour or two outdoors, let alone an entire night. But on January 25, King County residents of all ages could be found doing both as One Night Count volunteers walked the streets, counting the homeless.

Volunteers for the annual one night nationwide homeless census convened at the Hopelink emergency service center dressed in winter coats, hats and scarves.

“What was most surprising to me was the amount of volunteersso many they had to be turned away,” said SCC’s Opportunity Grant Director Matt Houghton.

Groups of three to six were each outfitted with a map outlining their area to canvass and a tally sheet to record the number of homeless people they observed.

Houghton led a group around the perimeter of the Sears’ parking lot and along the bike path west of Aurora Avenue between 145th St. and 167th St.

As they walked, Houghton and the English department’s Dutch Henry shined flashlights into corners and wooded areas to see if anyone was sleeping there. Volunteers were also on the lookout for parked vehicles, in which a person may be sleeping.

The 2008 One Night Count consisted of two parts conducted on the same night: A survey of people in shelters and transitional living arrangements, and a “street count” of people living outdoors.

According to the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness website, the purpose of the count is to both “document the nature and extent of homelessness, and to build public engagement around the issue so that more people will speak and act and write and advocate to end this crisis.”

Organizers acknowledged that the head count will miss many, such as people volunteers might fail to see and those living outside of designated canvass areas, for example. They stress that the results are a snapshot—a moment in time.

“The Count is one measure of how we’re doing in ending homelessness,” said George Smith of the City of Shoreline.

“The number itself is less important than the trend over time.”

In SCC’s neighborhood where Houghton’s group walked, volunteers came across only one person on foot, and one vehicle. (Not being able to determine who is inside a parked car or van, volunteers estimate two people per vehicle.)

On a national scale, the initial results of The Count were not encouraging.

Although the shelter count results will not be ready until early spring, the Seattle Post- Intelligencer reported Friday that the number for the street count— tallied immediately after volunteers return to their meeting sites (by 5 a.m.)—was 2,631 this year. This is a 15% increase over last year’s count of the same areas.

In the future, Seattle volunteers may find very different results during The Count if recent policy changes to the Parks Exclusion Ordinance are passed.

In the January 23 issue of Seattle-based weekly Real Change, Executive Director Timothy Harris criticized the policy that would make camping overnight on any public land a criminal offense, saying that it will merely eradicate the evidence of homelessness instead of trying to reduce the problem.