From the Albany Democrat-Herald:

For one night this past January, 500 people in Linn County and 420 people in Benton County found themselves without housing, many of them without shelter at all.

The numbers represent a more than 20% increase in those counted the year before.

The point-in-time count, often referred to as a PIT is a survey conducted over a day or two and is meant to find everyone in a community without housing or shelter.  It’s typically done in January because, the thought is, they are easier to find in cold weather.

Originally designed for metropolitan areas, it is difficult to conduct and often vastly undercounted in rural areas.

Nevertheless, advocates and volunteers banded together to try and count more people than ever this year, enlisting more volunteers and even drones in Sweet Home, where people take shelter in the forest and brush.

Even though the PIT count has issues with accuracy, it remains one of the deciding factors in how much local agencies receive in funds – both on a federal and state level – to assist people without housing.

Last year, Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency on homelessness, making money available to counties that saw a 50% increase in homelessness.  That left a lot of rural counties out.  Linn County officials declared their own state of emergency last year in an effort to be included in the package.

Earlier this year, Mid Valley Media reported that the move earned them $2.9 million to add about 100 beds in Linn County.

“We all have recently seen how powerful these numbers are as hundreds of millions of dollars have been directly informed by PIT count reports just in the last two years in the state of Oregon,” CSC Housing Senior Operations Manager Dina Eldridge said in a Tuesday news release.

“It is imperative that we use data to make these decisions, but not ideal when that data is skewed community-to-community, based on resources and geographical limitations, when we’re already struggling to compete with metropolitan areas” for funding, Eldridge said.

“Regardless of the exact numbers, we know and the data shows a drastic increase in homelessness, especially for vulnerable populations, across the board.”

Click here to read the full DH article.

Click here to read our complete press release and data for Linn, Benton, and Lincoln Counties.