With maps, resource guides and flashlights in hand, 450 volunteers from across Tarrant County exited the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex on the night of Jan. 25 to participate in the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition’s annual Point in Time Count.
The average temperature that night was 46 degrees.
Each team, consisting of volunteers and at least one neighborhood patrol officer, drove out to their designated sectors. On Team L12 were Mike Kuzenka, west division neighborhood patrol officer and former homeless liaison for the police department; Bel Haddad, the neighborhood patrol officer for Walsh Ranch, and three volunteers — Amy Bush, Madison Owen and Brandon Molina.
Even elected officials tagged along, including City Council member Michael Crain.
Driving around the Ridglea area, the team stopped at a game room. There, they found Beth, a 30-year-old young woman, wearing a blue Comfy and accompanied by her white dog.
They also met Penny and Will, a couple who have been on the streets for 10 years. A third man, Gary, came along and agreed to participate in the survey.
Some questions are basic: name, age, race and gender. Other inquiries are more personal — questions about alcohol or drug use, mental health conditions. The volunteers thanked participants for their honesty.
“This data really helps the homeless coalition,” Owen told the respondents.
Gary, 58, shared with the volunteers some traumatic life experiences, including family deaths and being in and out of some correctional facilities.
But he keeps a positive attitude. Gary said he will be starting up online school for the spring semester at Liberty University, studying accounting and business.
“I like to keep my mind busy,” he said. “You always gotta keep the faith.”
Bush, one of the volunteers, invited him to Ridglea Christian Church should he need a place to worship.
“You’re more than welcome to come worship with us and talk to God for a little bit,” she told him.
Over the course of two hours, the team surveyed about half a dozen individuals living unsheltered in their area.
The annual Point in Time Count is a federally required record of all people experiencing homelessness. These counts must be done within the last 10 days of January. In Texas, it’s done annually on the same date.
The count offers a snapshot of what homelessness looks like on a given night in the community, said Lauren King, executive director of the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition. It also allows the coalition to see historically how homelessness in the community has changed.
The data, which the coalition has been collecting since 1994, will be used in a variety of ways. The Point in Time Count is used in conjunction with other data the coalition collects.
“Every decision we make about services and things like that is based on the data we have,” King said.
She’s interested to see how the number of unsheltered people fared compared to past years, given that evening count’s weather was warmer than past years and the majority of shelters are at capacity.
“As far as what happens, of course, I hope the number goes down,” King said. “We’ve seen the numbers level off a little bit so I don’t think we’re seeing quite what we saw last year.”
Following the count, the coalition will take the data collected, clean it and make sure it is accurate. Those findings will be presented in March during the State of the Homeless Address. An exact date has not yet been determined.
Last year, the coalition counted 2,700 people experiencing homelessness across the county, a 22% increase from 2020, the last time the count was done pre-COVID. Of those 2,700, around 1,000 were unsheltered and living on the streets.
Sandra Sadek is a Report for America corps member, covering growth for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at sandra.sadek@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter at@ssadek19.
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