‘PIT count’ reveals scope of problem
Preliminary numbers: 70 ‘unsheltered’ living here
Editor’s note: This story is the first in a three-part series examining the issue of homelessness in Yuma.
Richard Ensign, 65, sat with his belongings under a shady tree in the park surrounding Yuma’s Heritage Library on a relatively mild May afternoon, which had been his home for about three weeks.
“It’s not bad,” he said, sitting next to his friend lying in the grass, who “sleeps 24/7.”
Ensign said this was the first time he’s ever been forced to live on the streets; the trailer he’d been living in was condemned. So he came to the park with his blankets, clothing, phones, and two bicycles; a twowheeler he doesn’t have the balance to ride on anymore, and a three-wheeler which needs repairs.
“I’ve got no job, no money and without a residence, it’s kind of hard to get unemployment,” he said. A California native who came to Yuma about a dozen years ago, he said he used to make a good living here with his restaurant supply business, donating some of his earnings to nonprofits like the Salvation Army and Crossroads Mission.
But he got ripped off by a developer who was renovating a downtown building a few years later, which wiped him out financially. He said he served in the military, but was denied benefits by the government. He’s now waiting for his Social Security check at the end of the month, and hopes to find housing.
Ensign said, “I know I
need to be indoors, once I get there it’ll all be OK. The question is can I last out to the 3rd of the month?”
He said conditions at the park have improved since he first got there, because he intimidated the drug dealers and users who dominated the space. But he’s also a very sick man, with stage 4 cancer, emphysema and hepatitis C.
He has no family left to help him, and it’s difficult to maintain any kind of treatment without a roof over his head. But he relies on his faith as he waits for some resolution to his plight: “I pray to my God.”
Ensign is one of the faces of homelessness in Yuma County. Nobody knows for sure how many more might be out there, and the answer would depend on how the problem is defined.
Every county in the U.S. is required to conduct a “point-in-time” census of homeless people within their borders, to help determine the amount of funding they receive from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address the issue.
The “PIT count” is based on a survey conducted by volunteers, who ask people where they slept on a particular night. HUD requirements limit the count to complete surveys given to the “unsheltered,” those who sleep or camp outdoors, live out of their vehicle, or in an abandoned building or other structure not considered safe for humans to live in.
Anyone who stayed in a homeless shelter, a hotel, with friends or relatives or had some other kind of roof over their head that night aren’t included in this count, no matter how unstable their housing might be. Their numbers are recorded in a separate survey, the Housing Inventory.
In Yuma County, the PIT count is overseen by the Yuma Coalition to End Homelessness, a conglomeration of agencies providing services to those who are homeless or in danger of losing their housing, collaborating on referring people to the appropriate agency, as well as other actions.
Preliminary, partial results from the count for Jan. 23, 2018 show 70 unsheltered people living in Yuma County; they’re not expected to be finalized until later this summer. No children under 18 were documented, but five young adults age 18-24 were counted, with ages 25-44 showing a combined total of 17.
The demographics of the homeless problem skew older in Yuma than many places, and it showed up in the PIT count. The largest group was those between 45 and 54, with 19. Those who were 55 to 75 came to a combined total of 25, with another three who were older than 75.
Eight reported themselves as military veterans. A large majority said being unsheltered was a longterm problem for them, with 36 saying they’d been continuously homeless for more than three years and another 21 for one to three years. Fifty-six of the respondents were men, 12 were women, and two were transgender.
Brenda McAdams, housing manager at ACHIEVE Human services and chair of the coalition, said no census is done during Yuma’s summer, when the number of homeless people drops but the scorching heat makes life far more dangerous for those who remain. The Salvation Army and other groups collect and distribute bottles of water throughout the year, but step up the efforts in the summer.
McAdams said homeless men find it easier to leave town for the summer, and women become a larger proportion of the unsheltered population, about 40 percent.
“I think the men are better rehearsed in how they use the transportation system, they have a better handle on how to ride the rails or do something else. And it’s much more dangerous for a female to travel, it’s multiplied by a thousand,” she said.
On Jan. 27, 2017, coalition volunteers came back with an identical total count of 70 unsheltered people in Yuma County. McAdams says she’s disappointed by this year’s outcome.
“I really thought we would get more this year, a lot more. But we had a lot of refusals,” she said, many from people who were either self-medicated or taking prescription medications for mental illness, and feeling like they didn’t need any help, such as the bags of bottled water, Top Ramen and other supplies handed out by the volunteers.
The more complete data available for the 2017 count reported 18 of the respondents said they had substance abuse problems, 14 had been diagnosed with serious mental illness, 10 were coping with post-traumatic stress and eight had suffered traumatic brain injury.
The unsheltered were predominantly white, at 54 percent, with 32 percent saying they were of Hispanic descent. Sixty-six were counted in the city of Yuma, while another three were found in the Foothills area and one in San Luis.
The 2016 PIT count, the last one taken before HUD changed some categories and requirements, had a total number almost twice as high as the following two years.
There were 129 completed surveys accounting for a total of 148 “household members,” including six under the age of 18. Of those 54, or 40 percent, spent that night “on the streets,” while another 67 were in a park, vehicle or camping outside the urban area. Six said they “didn’t sleep.”
So was there vast improvement in the number of people who were homeless during 2016? McAdams felt there might have been some turnover in the homeless population the following year, and was hoping to get more responses in 2018.
But Miguel Villalpando, project coordinator at the Yuma office for National Community Health Partners, thinks there has been significant progress, especially for families and individuals who are actively seeking help.
“There is a greater effort, emphasized, on sheltering, at the minimum at least temporary shelter, with those referrals out to Crossroads Mission. I think that’s the main reason that there’s a decline in those numbers,” he said.
But he admitted the PIT count doesn’t capture the full scope of the homelessness problem in Yuma.
“The homeless situation is a lot greater, and you can tell just by driving past the Crossroads Mission on a daily basis,” he said.
Anthony Wolfe, 55, sat last week at a picnic table under a shade tree on the eastern side of the Crossroads shelter at 944 S. Arizona Ave. in Yuma, the largest shelter in the county.
He said he’s been cycling in and out of the shelter for some 20 years, though he doesn’t seem to have the best grasp on the passage of time. When recalling the year when his father died, which pushed him onto the streets, he said, “1993? No, 1996, 1997. Over 20 years.” Then he added, “The year 2008. 2008? About 10 years ago my father died.”
But he does know how to survive in and around the mission, a faith-based nonprofit which maintains emergency shelters for men and families, along with a drug treatment program. Guests are allowed to stay in the shelter 10 consecutive days per month, so Wolfe stays inside as long as he can and then camps nearby, always coming back for dinner at 5 p.m.
He spends much of his time on that bench, hoping a contractor will come by and pick him up to do odd jobs for a couple hours, or a day. He often ends up dealing with trash disposal. “I try to stay busy, I don’t want to just sit around,” he said.
He said he plans to apply for federal disability benefits which could allow him to get his own apartment, but he’s waiting to get the mailbox he’s applied for get approved: “I’m waiting for a U.S. postal mailbox, it’s going to happen any day.”
He’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia and manic depression, and is taking medication for relief from the symptoms. A Yuma native, he said repaired flat tires at a General Tire dealership here, after attending Kofa High School.
He sees a doctor twice a month, and visits with a brother who lives in Yuma, and is encouraging him to seek the disability benefits, he said.
Chris Bolin, clinical director at Crossroads Mission, said that throughout the last two months the men’s shelter has remained at or near its capacity of 110. The number of men seeking help does not decrease during the hotter months, but those who do come in tend to leave more quickly, he said.
“It appears that sleeping outside is not as bad in the summer,” he said.
The family shelter houses up to 120 women and children separately from the men, and the number staying there has been hovering around 90 since April, he said. About 30 of those are school-age children.
“We have seen a decline in the number of families that have needed our services,” he said. “But it comes in waves with no discernible pattern. In general the resources that are available to families with children are more available.
“I would like to believe that more people are getting assistance before they actually become homeless.”