PIT count records 241 homeless in the county
The total is an overall decrease from a year ago
After completing 319 overall surveys during the annual Point in Count representing 241 people who met the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) definition of experiencing homelessness in Lake County, the results of the 2021 PIT Count show an overall decrease in the 2020 count throughout most of the county, (down from 572 people last year) according to the report approved by the Continuum of Care Thursday.
However, according to a summary of the data presented during the zoom meeting by Chairperson Rev. Shannon Kimbell-Auth, some of the numbers may be skewed in part due to the COC switching from paper to digital tools, mainly Simtech Solutions, the digital Counting application used for the first time to enter data on the number of people experiencing homelessness, and also due to how homelessness is officially defined. Kimbell-Auth said that overall, even though 600 surveys were attempted, only 319 of them were actually completed, so even though the homeless rate is believed to be higher, the data doesn’t always reflect this.
“Some of these look like we had an increase but it was really because of the way Simtech did the geographic location,” Kimbell-Auth said, noting that in Lower Lake for example, 19 people were not actually counted. “What really happened is some of our off site remote workers were counting people around Dam Road, but because they used the geographic locator in the PIT count, the data marks them as being in Lower Lake because they were just on the side of the border even though we might traditionally have ascribed those areas to being part of Clearlake.”
The COC program is tasked with promoting the County of Lake’s commitment to the goal of ending homelessness. According to data summarized by Kimbell-Auth, more than 63 volunteers in conjunction with staff spread out over various participating sites including: Clearlake, Lower Lake (United Methodist Church), Middletown (United Methodist Church), Kelseyville (Senior Center), Lakeport (The Harbor on Main), and Upper Lake.
Some of the findings summarized in the report detailed 115 of 319 people surveyed self identified as having Chronic Health disability (36%), 62 people said they receive disability benefits (19%), and 227 of respondents have lived in Lake County
longer than five years, dispelling a common misconception that an area’s homeless population is composed mostly from people coming in out of the area.
The 2021 report, which will be sent to HUD, breaks down the data into various specific categories including specific regions, (same as last year Clearlake continues to show the biggest number of people identified as homeless although that figure has decreased from 241 a year ago to 117 respondents this year), gender, ethnicity, and chronic homelessness, defined as people who have experienced homelessness for at least a year, or repeatedly, while struggling with a disabling condition such as a serious mental illness or substance use.
Survey respondents were also queried in regards to what they believed to be most needed to help them including the existence of family emergency shelters, permanent supportive housing, and housing vouchers among other needs.
This year’s count also included members of Lake County’s tribes who self reported during the PIT count including Robinson, Pomo, Chippewa and Cherokee, with Robinson having the greatest number at 13.
Twenty-six people identified themselves as being veterans but the official PIT report is only going to show 16. The difference represents the number of surveys that were not accepted.
Kimbell-Auth empha- sized that this year’s count was also impacted not only by COVID but by the se- vere weather on January 28, the day the count was conducted, including a significant snowstorm and intermittent rain, leading to more difficulties for volunteers conducting the count.