For three, chilly pre-dawn hours last Friday morning, local volunteers combed the island in search of those without shelter as part of King County’s annual tally of its homeless. This is the third year that Vashon has participated in the federally-mandated enumeration, and thanks to one specific change in methodology, the numbers suggest a more accurate — though certainly not complete — picture of the crisis here than they have previously.
“We counted 77 people on the island who where living outside last night,” said Hilary Emmer, island activist and co-organizer of this year’s counting effort. “That is double last year’s count.”
Islander Eden Bossom, who works with the King County Housing Authority and has participated in the annual event for nearly a decade, has coordinated the Vashon count since the island began participating in 2015. She explained why this year’s number is less an indication of a dramatic increase, and more a reflection of better counting.
“As a rural community, things are done differently here than the city counts, but we did hire two ‘guides’ this year, according to the new guidelines,” she said. “They were very familiar with where people were. We would not have seen many of these people without their help.”
The “guides” that Bossom referred to, are part of a re-vamped methodology that King County’s All Home, formerly the Committee to End Homelessness, and Applied Survey Research (ASR), a California-based company that works closely with the department of Housing and Urban Development, implemented after taking over the event from the Seattle/King County Coalition to End Homelessness (SKCCH) when it decided to devote its efforts to advocacy this past fall.
Embracing an “inside information” approach supported by ASR’s previous success, organizers hired either currently or recently homeless guides to assist about 75 percent of the volunteer teams in locating people that needed to be counted. The guides were paid $15/hour both for the count itself and for training, and will also be paid for administering surveys aimed at collecting qualitative data to be included with the numbers. Anyone that completes a survey will receive a $5 gift card.
“Both of our guides are currently homeless, and both are native islanders, born and raised,” Emmer said.
Formerly called the One Night Count, the event is now called Count Us In, appropriating the name of the former youth count, which until this year, was done separately. Also new this year was the expansion of the counted areas to include every census tract in King County — all in an attempt to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the homeless crisis, and better understand what is needed to address it in specific communities.
Emmer and Bossom, along with their crew of island volunteers (Kathleen Johnson, Dan Auer, Franny Allen, Kael Noah and Larry Hubbell) and two guides, traveled nearly every road on Vashon between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Jan. 27. They counted a total of 77 people sleeping on the street, in tents, buildings (not intended for living purposes, such as sheds), cars, recreational vehicles and vans. There was no one sheltered at the Lutheran or Methodist churches that night, according to Nancy Vanderpool of the Interfaith Council to prevent Homelessness.
“Even though we were able to find more people this year, this is still just a best-case scenario, a minimum,” Bossom noted. “We can’t count people who couch surf, and maybe there were people who were outside the night before, but found a place to sleep the night we counted. So we still have to assume this number is low.”
The data collected from Count Us In will be used by the county to help determine funding and services, as well as both long- and short-term plans to address the worsening homeless crisis. However, Emmer is not hopeful that Vashon will see anything significant resulting from its participation.
“We desperately need money and support here, but we don’t meet the demographics that the county typically gives money to,” she said, noting that the Vashon Social Services Network has invited SKCCH to a meeting this spring to find out how the data could be used to receive additional support.
Bossom offered a different perspective.
“Now that we have demonstrated a higher baseline of unsheltered people, maybe we could better fundraise for services,” she said, also noting that Vashon’s participation has paved the way for many of the rural areas that are only now being included in the count. “Hopefully, Vashon’s methodology may be used by some of these areas that are new to the process.”
Those involved say the event is timely, given the current discussions surrounding the town plan and efforts to create more affordable housing on the island.
“It’s a crime that we have lost so much rental housing that is affordable here,” Emmer said, adding that she knows of a number of people who work on the island but have had to move to Port Orchard for that very reason. “We have people working two jobs who can’t afford to live here. A lot of these people are not the stereotypes (of the homeless). These are families that are working hard. People don’t realize what it’s like to earn minimum wage working full time, and what you can and can’t afford.”
