2019 Kitsap County Point in Time Count

Every year counties around the state and country participate in the Point in Time (PIT) count to survey people living in unstable housing or on the street. The numbers collected help areas apply for grants to provide services and can also shed some light on the epidemic of homelessness that receives so little attention.

On Thursday and Friday this week, I had the pleasure of participating in the PIT count for Kitsap county. On Thursday I was part of one of the teams deployed throughout Bremerton to find people in the streets. Our group wandered down to the waterfront from the Norm Dicks building and met a couple people willing to be surveyed before we looped back around toward the Marvin Williams Rec Center. We got to talk to and survey several folks at the Salvation Army before the doors opened for breakfast. By that point it was clear that most people had found someplace to spend their day where we wouldn’t be able to find them to talk so we headed in for the day. All told, our group turned in about 10 surveys.

On Friday, I joined a couple wonderful volunteers at the South Kitsap Helpline food bank to continue the survey efforts. During the roughly three hours I was there, I filled out two more surveys and spent the rest of the time enjoying the warmth of the brief sunbreaks and watching the comings and goings at the food bank. They’ve got an incredible outreach there that I encourage you to look up and support if you can.

It will be interesting to observe the data from this year’s count and hopefully it provides some insight to better respond to the needs of our neighbors moving forward.