The annual unsheltered Point-in-Time count sends interviewers out into the Salem area to count the number of people living out on the street, in tents, RVs or in cars.Last January, Marion and Polk counties recorded a record 2,154 homeless people living outside of shelters. The high number compared t o previous counts resulted from a more thorough and better organized count and rising costs of rent and essentials driving more people into homelessness for the first time in their lives. The count that took people under bridges and into informal camps won’t be done next month. Budget cuts are straining staff availability, delaying the count until January 2027. The results of the count help determine how much federal money the region will get for housing and homeless services. Last year, the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance coordinated the count by assigning regional leads who worked in homeless services and had local knowledge of camps and the people in them. Those leads helped recruit 200 volunteers for the effort. They all worked to make the weeklong event more beneficial to homeless participants by hosting 17 events providing services and supplies.Misty Bolger, executive director of the alliance, said the regional leaders made last year’s count “incredible.” But with funding cuts on the local and state level, organizations serving the homeless had no staff to spare for another count. “We were worried that doing a count that was inaccurate would harm us in the long run,” Bolger said. “If we did a poor count and it showed that we had decreased our homeless population when that wasn’t reflective of what was happening, we were concerned about that.”The unsheltered count is required every odd-numbered year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, but many communities have historically done it annually.The Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance skipped the 2024 count, spending the year off working to improve its methodology. That included surveying people more sensitively over the invasive but federally required questions about experiences with disability, substance use and domestic violence. The pause also led to the outreach events, which organizers consider a success.Bolger said no count in 2026 means losing momentum of volunteers and connections generated by last year’s robust count, and a year’s worth of data.But, among homeless service providers, the unsheltered Point-in-Time count is considered a snapshot, and of questionable accuracy in measuring who’s experiencing homelessness.  The alliance still plans to tally people staying in emergency shelters and transitional housing to meet federal requirements. Meantime, other annual evaluations will go on.  That includes a count using data from local shelters about the number of people in the region who have become homeless for the first time in their lives, the number of people who get housing but return to homelessness and the number of people who successfully move from the streets into a permanent place of their own. “This allows us to measure how well our system as a whole is working,” Peak said in an email. “This report focuses on the effects of our work on the individual level.”  The alliance also is undertaking a study of trends in shelter and housing capacity over the past seven years. Peak said such research provides better insights into homelessness in the local area than the annual count, which has flaws. “There is so much undeveloped area around rivers and wooded areas that remain hidden to us and make it much harder to find and count these individuals,” Peak said.Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post Salem-area organizers opt to skip unsheltered homeless count this year appeared first on Salem Reporter. ...read more read less