Tri-Cities Prepare For Homeless Count

The Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Department of Humans Services are coordinating to do the Annual Point in Time count this Thursday. Point-In-Time counts inform the agencies on how many individual homeless people are living in the community.

Once a year, agencies need volunteers to go out in the community to assess the number of people that are living without housing. Alexia Estrada from the Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce explains.

 “So it is an opportunity for us to go out and survey folks, to be able to provide more funding, to be able to get more resources, so we can help to end homelessness,” Estrada said.

The Tri-City Hispanic Chamber is working with the Housing Resource Center, Department of Human Services to do this nationwide Point-In-Time count locally in the Tri-Cities. They are having training Tuesday and Wednesday before the count Thursday morning.

”It is just an opportunity for us to really learn more about the PIT count, why it’s done, and really train volunteers, in what they will be doing when they go out and talk to folks,” Estrada said. “Folks are going to be probably sleeping or in their safe places so we don’t want to be intrusive of that either we really want to go in with as much awareness as we can into the situation as we talk to folks.”

Knowing how many people need services and programs can help inform the agencies in identifying the gaps. Contact Alexia Estrada at the Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber to volunteer. The trainings are via Zoom and can be watched before the count on Thursday at 5 am.

The Point-In-Time count will be taking place Thursday, February 24th at 5 a.m. and the meeting point will be at the Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber office, 1600 N 20th Ave, Suite E, Pasco, WA.

If you want to volunteer, you can click on this link to register: https://forms.gle/nVNBS145RzkZSUQN8