PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — To understand how to combat the issue of homelessness, the first step is knowing how many are experiencing it in our communities.
“Every January, the last Wednesday of January, coalitions across the nation go out to count individuals who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness,” says Josh Benti. “We’ll meet, get our assignments, kind of coordinate where everyone is going to be going and then we’ll get to go out and interact with those who are experiencing homelessness over the night.”
Benti is the homeless initiative project director with the Greater Green Bay Blueprint to End and Prevent Homelessness. Working with the Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition, Benti says this is what’s called the point-in-time count — literally counting the community members who sleep on the streets.
“That count informs how much funding communities receive from the federal government,” he adds.
Benti stresses, however, that the count isn’t just important for funding. It helps identify trends and slow changes in homelessness in our community.
“Our average typical individual who’s experiencing homelessness is about a 45-year-old white man, probably in the age range of 35 to 45,” he says. “But our increasing demographics, so trending along the lines, we do see an increased number of youth experiencing homelessness, so 24 and under, and we’re seeing increases in people who are 55 and older experiencing homelessness.”
While it’s not a drastic change, he says the yearly point-in-time counts can help keep track of those trends and begin to try to solve those problems. The count can help shape how our community responds to and helps combat homelessness, he adds.
Benti says the count welcomes volunteers, and the experience can be eye-opening.
“If you’re interested in seeing what it’s like for someone who might be experiencing homelessness overnight, you can come out and join our volunteer groups. You’ll be paired up with our team leads in those spaces and going out to do those point-in-time counts, and you get to really see what the face of homelessness looks like here in Brown County,” he says.
It can help break down barriers for communities to have a real experience and witness what life is like for those who struggle with homelessness.
“I think a lot of preconceived notions of going into experiencing time with people who are homeless is that maybe they’re all drug addicts, or they had some act of their own that led them to homelessness, and the reality is, it’s a lot more complicated than just someone not paying rent on time,” Benti says. “That might be an aspect of it, but it also comes down to medical bills and food bills and all those other things along the way, and breaking down the barriers around affordability in our community on all those sectors is really important.”
Then understanding that a subset of homelessness might be experiencing homelessness and have drug addiction issues, and all those things along the way, but there’s also a subset of people who are experiencing homelessness for the first time and might not know where to turn. We get to be those first people on the ground that might be interacting with someone on that point-in-time count and connecting them with services and making sure that they’re counted in our community.
To learn more about volunteering for the point-in-time count, reach out to Meaghan Gleason at (920) 863-9403 or email meaghangleason@newcap.org.
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