The Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness's annual One Night Count this year will offer a new view of an underrepresented segment of that mass of people we call "the homeless": families with children.
This year for the first time, social agencies that provide housing to those families logged the calls they received asking for shelter in the 24-hour period that coincided with the One Night Count.
"The street count gives us a fairly good sense of unmet need for single adults," says SKCCH director Alison Eisinger. "One of the interesting findings is that this is indeed a hidden population."
Each caller was asked to say where they had stayed the night before; the three most common places were with family, friends, or in a hotel or motel -- all places which wouldn't show up in the nightly count.
Service agencies logged 273 calls during that 24-hour period. After combing the information each caller provided, they estimated that 142 families with 283 children had sought help.
SKCCH is hoping to propel public concern into public action: this weekend they're holding Beyond the One Night Count, a training for citizens who want to lobby their elected officials on the subject of homelessness. Most proximately, SKCCH and national allies are pressuring Congress for an extra billion dollars for the national Housing Trust Fund and 200,000 more housing assistance vouchers.
Beyond the One Night Count takes place from 10 a.m. to noon on Sat., May 30, at Keystone Church, 5019 Keystone Pl N, in Seattle. To register, email [email protected] or call 206-357-3149, or just show up.