Help Count Hollywood’s Homeless
Tomorrow night the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority will be conducting the next stage of their 2009 count of the L.A. homeless population here in Hollywood. Getting an accurate count of the number of people living on the streets or in shelters in our city is a crucial step toward getting the funding we need to ultimately end homelessness in Los Angeles. Essentially, what LAHSA is doing is taking a census of those among us who are living in the shadows. For them to count, they need to be counted and that’s where you can help.
LAHSA is looking for volunteers to interview homeless people both sheltered and unshltered in Hollywood tomorrow night. There will be an extensive 2 hour training at 8pm and then at 10pm volunteers will canvass the area in groups of 3 or 4 at a time to interview as many homeless people as we can to obtain crucial demographic data. LAHSA has more details of what the count will entail:
Homeless Demographic Surveys collect demographic data (age, gender, etc.) and descriptive data (length of time being homeless, services used, etc.) about homeless individuals in our region.
The General Population Telephone Survey seeks to enumerate the “hidden homeless”; that is, those who currently would not be counted via the Unsheltered Street Count or the Shelter & Institution Count because they are camping on private property, living in unconverted garages and garden sheds, and other such areas.
The Unsheltered Street Count utilizes volunteers to enumerate unsheltered homeless persons on a given night (e.g. living on the street, in encampments, in cars) in census tracts throughout the Greater Los Angeles area.
The Shelter & Institution Count estimates the number of homeless individuals and families housed overnight in shelters (emergency and transitional shelters, motels/hotels that accept homeless vouchers) and institutions (residential alcohol & drug treatment centers, jails, detention centers, hospital emergency rooms).
Getting an accurate count of our homeless population is a necessary step toward ending homelessness and coming out and helping LAHSA is a safe and rewarding way to give back to the community.
To sign up for the Hollywood count please contact Sarah MacPherson at the Hollywood Business Improvement District at sarah@hollywoodbid.org.
