Mecklenburg County plans to host a forum on Wednesday to recruit volunteers for the upcoming annual Point-In-Time count that assesses the state of homelessness.
The forum will include county representatives, community advocates such as Shaq Clarke with Time Out Youth. Donald Whitehead Jr., the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, is also expected to be at the forum.
Branden Lewis is a Mecklenburg County representative and one of the people behind the event. Lewis says they decided to invite Whitehead for a specific reason.
“We always look to center the voices with lived experiences of homelessness to help us highlight the gap,” Lewis said.
This year, over 200 volunteers helped identify at least 444 people living outdoors during the point-in-time count in January. The unsheltered counts find people living outside in places such as bus stops, cars and tents. This year's unsheltered count highlighted that 60 more people are living outdoors compared to last year's count.
As part of the count, volunteers also identified Abdul Wright, 52, who was found lying dead in uptown. Medical records showed Wright died from pneumonia.
"We definitely hope and pray that that is not something that happens again,” said Mary Ann Priester, a county representative who analyzes the data. She added, "We never want to see one of our neighbors dying on the street. Our street outreach teams are out in the community doing cold-weather outreach, doing hot-weather outreach, trying to get people inside when there's that extreme weather ... no one should have to die on the streets."
As part of the count, volunteers are tasked with handing out sleeping bags and food to those experiencing homelessness, on top of asking a range of questions to community members. They include race, age, and sex. The survey questions help the county get a better understanding of the number and background of people impacted by homelessness.
“I want the number to go down, but as someone who wants to engage as many people as possible who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, I want to capture everyone, Priester said. "So we expect that number to go up.”
Part of the reason Priester says she expects the number to go up is that county staff and street outreach workers know where those living outside reside.
Wednesday's forum starts at 6:30 p.m. at the McColl Center in uptown.
