Officials to gather homeless data for San Joaquin County

There were more than 2,700 homeless people in San Joaquin County in 2007. At the end of January, county officials will determine whether that number has gone up or down.

In Lodi, the county's Community Development Department will take a head count of the homeless by inviting them to an event on Jan. 28 at the Lodi Grape Festival. The county will offer food, backpacks, ponchos and hygiene items as an incentive.

The goal is to get as accurate a count as possible of the number of homeless people who do not stay at the Salvation Army in Lodi or another shelter in the county, said Bill Mendelson, executive director of Central Valley Housing, a nonprofit organization that provides transitional housing to the homeless.

It's easy to get information from the shelters because they keep detailed records, Mendelson said, but the real challenge is documenting the number of homeless who don't sleep at a shelter.

County officials and volunteers will also try to count the migrant farm worker population, most of whom live in orchards, under bridges and in their cars, according to Jon Moore, the county's chief deputy community development director.

The county is required by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development to conduct a housing count every two years, he said. The census was taken for the first time in the summer of 2005 and repeated in January 2007.

The county's work has brought in $3 million of federal funds for transitional housing for the homeless and permanent housing for disabled homeless people, Moore said. Some 400 homeless families are served, he added.

Homeless figures at a glance

2007
Sheltered: 2,464
Unsheltered: 271
Total: 2,735

2005
Sheltered: 2,833
Unsheltered: 511
Total: 3,344

Note: 63 percent of the homeless were men in 2007 and 79 percent in 2005.

Source: San Joaquin County Community Development Department

Statistics are also put into a database, and agencies can access them and do whatever they want with the information, Moore said.

Some communities will send volunteers in the middle of the night to look for homeless people sleeping outside, Mendelson said, but San Joaquin County officials opted to conduct three events at public places for the homeless.

"We do interviews about where they were (the) night before and what their needs are so we get a sense of how many folks are out there," Mendelson said. "We don't assume that every unsheltered person in Lodi is going to show up."

The events will be from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Lodi Grape Festival grounds, Jan. 29 at the same time at the Tracy Community Center and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jan. 30 at the Stockton Shelter/St. Mary's Interfaith dining hall.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com

Reader Feedback

ross farrow wrote on Jan 7, 2009 12:41 PM:

" Correction has been made. It is Jan. 28. My apologies for the typo. "

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loadeye wrote on Jan 7, 2009 12:14 PM:

" wtf, you're right about the date and they're looking for volunteers to help with this event. I'll be one of those in attendance and will never lose my desire for helping the homeless and less fortunate, especially our own Lodians. "

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wtf wrote on Jan 7, 2009 9:23 AM:

" Ross you might want to change the date in the second paragraph from June 28 to January 28. It's a bit confusing. Unless there are to be two events, one in January and one in June. "

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