Carson City hosts resource fair for homeless as part of annual 'Point-in-Time Count'
Each year, a national “Point-in-Time Count” is conducted in any community that receives U.S Housing and Urban Development funds as a way to figure out how many people are suffering from homelessness in each community in order to better apply resources.
In conjunction with the annual count on Thursday morning, Carson City also put together a “Homeless Resource Fair” that provided a hot and cold breakfast provided by the Salvation Army, along with several community resources to help those dealing with homelessness.
According to Mary-Jane Ostrander of Carson City Health and Human Services, the annual count is a way to get a “snap shot” of the homeless population. All communities conduct the count in the last week in January with Jan. 30 as the main focus, to help prevent overlap with neighboring communities.
“Part of the data we gather is an in-depth interview when we’re out doing the street count, which is more than just the basics of male or female and where they are,” said Ostrander. “We try to find out, how long they have been homeless, what caused their homelessness, etc. To get the interviews it’s more difficult out in the streets to conduct. So, we invited them to community center to do the interviews and get help, and that way we can get them in our data bases so that when we have housing we can get them rehoused. There’s a number score that determines how high risk, and how vulnerable they are, and the more vulnerable is who we help first.”
There were many community members that provided help and access to resources at the Community Center Thursday. Some of those that contributed were:
- The Salvation Army
- Northern Nevada Center for Independent Living
- Nevada Legal Services
- Health Clinic and Immunize Nevada with Health and Human Services
- FISH
- Veterans Resource Center
- Behavioral Health Services
- Ron Wood Family Resource Center
- Saint Vincent Church
- NOTS (Night Off the Street) Shelters
- Carson Valley Sertoma
- Carson Rural Clinic (State mental health clinic)
- Vitality Unlimited
In addition to the street count, the count will also include motel and transitional housing as well, along with children who are homeless, in motel housing or in transitional housing, which is provided by the school district.
“We do anticipate seeing higher numbers from last year,” said Ostrander.
Craig “Deacon” Lagier coordinates the count each year and runs the NOTS shelters, which is a coordinated effort between the churches in town to provide nightly shelter to the homeless population during the colder months of the year.
“The street count went very very well this year,” said Lagier. “We had a lot more cooperation with the motels and shelter homes, and now there aren’t that many in the streets because of the overflow shelters and housing provided by FISH. The (volunteers) that are out there were more committed than they have ben in the past and they have the desire to do that. I was very pleased with it. Normally we’re done by 5 p.m. but today we were done by 1:30.”
An extensive report with the data collected from the count will be ready by mid-summer.
Meanwhile, it was announced earlier this month that federal HUD grants amounting to $13,417,083 will be awarded to organizations in the Silver State that assist in homeless programs. The 50 grants were awarded to organizations in Carson City, Fallon, Reno, Sparks, Winnemucca, Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City and Pahrump. It has not been announced which homeless programs in the capital city will receive a portion of the grant.
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