The thorns had come alive, and the footprints were re-filled with snow.
Tree branches had been bent and curved into caves providing shelter.
Many of the valuables found during the annual Point-In-Time count (PIT) were indistinguishable due to weather damage. However, an assortment of children’s belongings, adult jackets, and t-shirts were preserved beneath leaves.
In addition to those belongings, Thursday’s survey uncovered a mirror strung up by rope and attached to a tree in the middle of the woods. The singular mirror, surrounded by an encampment, provided a glimpse into the lives of those experiencing homelessness.
The PIT count is an annual survey that is federally mandated and takes place across the nation in an attempt to measure the number of people experiencing homelessness in a night in January. The resulting figure becomes a part of the Continuum of Care (CoC) application for homelessness funding.
The CoC helps people experiencing homelessness to find resources such as targeted services for veterans or domestic violence survivors, as well as direct forms of housing services with organizations like Empower and Loisann’s Hope House.
Many moving parts must work for this project to take place.
The Fredericksburg CoC is staffed out of the George Washington Regional Commission (GWRC) downtown, as the region is part of Planning District 16, which includes Caroline, King George, Spotsy, and Stafford counties.
Megan Samples, the program coordinator for GWRC, acted as one of the main coordinators of the PIT count this year.
“We start calling for volunteers around October, November time after [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] announces the date for the point in time count,” Samples said.
According to Samples, 56 volunteers participated in this year’s PIT count, including returning volunteers and some who had not conducted the survey before.
“There can be a lot of misconceptions about folks that are in situations of homelessness, and as a volunteer, you are interacting with folks on a one-on-one basis,” she said.
Volunteering opportunities consisted of field surveying teams or teams that helped with the homeless shelters. These encounters facilitate an interpersonal connection that is often lost due to the stigma that comes with people who are experiencing homelessness.
Aside from volunteers, the PIT count involves social services and law enforcement personnel from several jurisdictions to maintain the safety of volunteers and respondents alike.
Responses from the surveys are used to develop an understanding of the services people find helpful, as well as those services that may be missing.
Though finding respondents allows for information to be generated, there was a large consensus among volunteers Thursday that they hoped not to find any. Although this defeats the purpose of the PIT count, finding respondents means that someone had spent the night outside during freezing weather conditions, rather than in a warm shelter.
Though the survey is the focus of the PIT count, volunteers can log observations regarding places they deem used as shelters, such as tents and traps.
On Thursday, volunteers documented multiple encampments that had either been abandoned or crushed from the previous snowfall.
From these observations, the CoC can deduce that people have changed locations or are using the services available for shelter during colder winter nights. The number of encampments matters as they are a physical representation of people’s housing situations.
“For folks like your team who found a number of campsites but not a lot of individuals to speak with, we do work with service providers to get outreach workers connected with those locations,” Samples said.
That ensures that there is a level of support in place even if individuals were not with their encampment at the time of the survey.
The PIT count is conducted during the same time every year to create continuity throughout the nationwide organizations and to help with accurately tracking trends within the homeless population.
While the winter PIT count takes place every year, there is an optional Summer PIT count that happens every other year. The reason the Summer PIT count does not take place yearly is due to staffing and other resources.
“I think if we had more staff capacity, we would do it every year. But it is a heavy lift to plan,” Samples said.
According to Samples, the summer PIT count provides an alternate perspective on the homeless population.
Because there are no seasonal shelters open, more people are left without roofs over their heads. Samples also explained that when people are transitioning through the community, movement often happens during the summertime.
“Whether that’s folks that are experiencing homelessness issues of affordable housing, you know, they’re all kind of linked,” she said. “So, I would encourage folks to really get involved. It’s a great entry point to get involved in some real, sustainable solutions around our housing crisis.”
