In each corner of the county, cities are participating in the annual “Point in Time Count” 24 hour campaign to get an accurate picture of the homeless community.
The South Plains Homeless Consortium led the campaign for the Hub City this year, comprised of 40 different organizations and volunteers to help.
“We also count how many beds we have available in Lubbock and we compare that to the number of people experiencing homelessness,” SPHC President Chad Wheeler said. “So like a lot of cities, we have more people than we have beds so it helps us identify what kinds of beds, what kinds of solutions we need to increase to address the issues that we’re facing.”
18 different groups to each section of town starting at 6 a.m. Thursday morning.
“It allows the community’s outreach groups to actually identify certain areas of the homeless populations of the needs that they need whether it be medical or mental health, that’s very important,” Lubbock Police Homeless Outreach Team’s Steven Bergan said.
The police department’s H.O.T. team had the opportunity to participate in this campaign for the first time after a year of forming. Bergen said his experience has helped aid the process by identifying with each person on a more personal level.
“They’re people just like you and me,” Bergan said. “The only thing is that they don’t have a roof over their head.”
Each volunteer had a tablet to take personal surveys for each person during their shift. That information is then related back to SPHC and also given to the national campaign.
At 11 a.m. they received 167 surveys from around town. By about 4:45 p.m. they told KLBK and EverythingLubbock.com they received 312 surveys.
SPHC added that they will have an exact count with trends around March.
