Volunteers who participated in the One Night Count last week counted 10 homeless people on Vashon and are already looking to improve counting methods for next year’s survey.

The results of the One Night Count, an annual homeless count in King County that Vashon participated in for the first time, were announced on Friday. Countywide, volunteers counted 3,772 adults and children that had no shelter the night of Jan. 22 to 23 in Seattle and other communities in King County. This was a 21 percent increase over last year, according to Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, which runs the event.

Eden Bossom, an islander who works for the King County Housing Authority and coordinated the Vashon count, said they are aware that there are more homeless on Vashon than the 10 people counted.

“Our service people know of at least double that,” she said. “But the methodology was a factor. That’s why it was important to see how it worked in a rural community to move forward.”

Bossom, who has participated in the count seven times, added that running the survey on Vashon as compared to urban areas was like “sticking a square peg into a round hole.”

“We didn’t go onto private property; we didn’t go to the woods. We stuck with the methodology for the urban areas, checking vehicles, doorways, benches, outside public areas,” she said. “So the challenge for the future will be how to tailor the method to get a more accurate count in the rural communities.”

Of the 10 people counted in and around Vashon town, eight were sleeping in vehicles, one was walking the streets and one was sleeping outside.

The data for the overnight count does not include the thousands of people staying in shelters or transitional housing, numbers that will be available soon.

Bossom, who led a team of five island volunteers, said she suspects that next year’s count on Vashon will look much different than this one and that is when the value will be evident.

As for Count Us In, the survey of homeless and unstably housed youth offered at the Vashon Library last Thursday, Vashon submitted four surveys to the county.

Ursula Schwaiger, the library’s children’s section supervisor, said that of the eight people ages 12 to 25 who filled out surveys, one was unstably housed and three stated that there has been a time when they did not know where they were going to sleep at night.

“We’ll definitely plan to be a part of this again next year,” Schwaiger said. “I thought it was worthwhile. Maybe the word will get out more.”