News Release from Lane Co. Government
Posted on FlashAlert: January 29th, 2025 2:40 PM
Lane County Human Services, in coordination with community partners, will be conducting the annual Homeless Point In Time (PIT) count this year on January 30th and 31st. The PIT count is a one-night count of persons experiencing homelessness in our community and is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The annual PIT count assesses the number of people sleeping in emergency shelters and transitional housing programs, using food pantries, day and night access centers, churches, and those sleeping outdoors in cars, tents, parks, or other outdoor spaces not intended to be housing.
The PIT count is meant to serve as a snapshot of homelessness in Lane County in order to provide a sense of the general scope and state of homelessness. While the data collected are important for benchmarking and funding purposes, it’s important to recognize that the number of individuals experiencing homelessness is likely greater than is able to be captured in this snapshot.
This year, the primary data source will be the Homeless By Name List (HBNL), a report generated from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a database which collects information about individuals who are experiencing homelessness who have interacted with service agencies throughout the County. As we know not all individuals engage with service agencies, street outreach teams will conduct a physical count of individuals who are unsheltered in Eugene/Springfield, as well as targeted rural areas of Veneta, Florence, Oakridge, Cottage Grove, and Junction City to get a more complete picture. This outreach is specifically targeted toward surveying individuals who are least likely to engage with services or to have already been counted through the HBNL.
Additionally, Lane County is a Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) Community, selected by HUD to test best and promising practices and implement a coordinated community plan to end youth homelessness. As part of this effort, LCHS will be taking extra steps to ensure youth who are experiencing homelessness are captured in the 2025 PIT count, including those who are unstably housed or couch surfing. Lane County will host a Resource Fair on January 30th from 3-6pm at Youth Era, 44 W 7th Ave in Eugene to bring youth in to engage and complete a survey. Just as with the broader count, these surveys will be cross-referenced with our HBNL and, if the young person is not already captured, they will be included in our count, provided they meet HUD’s definition and parameters for submission in the PIT count. Those unstably housed or couch surfing will not be included in the data provided to HUD but will be captured in local data to inform our YHDP planning efforts. Youth surveyors will also be conducting youth-specific outreach in the metro and rural areas on the day of the count. This year’s youth PIT count strategies have been vetted and approved through the YHDP Youth Executive committee.
The full report from the PIT count will be made available in May, following final submission to HUD.
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.