The Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry is searching soup kitchens, social service sites, woods and alleyways this week in an effort to gather information on the number of homeless people in North Central Florida.
Beginning today in Alachua County, advocates and those who are homeless will band together to gather data on demographics, unmet social service needs and causes and lengths of homelessness.
The survey has been conducted in Alachua County within the last 10 days of January every year since 2003.
“It’s the one time of year that we’re able to count on the data to be comparable to years past, so it lets us know about the changes that have occurred in the area,” the coalition’s executive director Jon DeCarmine said.
DeCarmine said homeless people will be paid a living wage to contribute to the survey.
“Homeless people are their own best advocates and the best way [for us] to determine what our programs need is by asking those people,” DeCarmine said.
The first survey was conducted in 2003.
Since then, the number of homeless men, women and children counted in Alachua County has increased from 852 to more than 1,600, according to the press release.
This is the first year the coalition will conduct a census in Bradford, Levy, Putnam and Gilchrist counties.
Each census is conducted within a 24-hour period so that those gathering information do not double-count anyone, DeCarmine said.
According to a press release, the coalition will release initial results of this year’s count by Friday.
A detailed report of homeless conditions will follow in March.
