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The annual Point in Time Count of those who are unsheltered is underway in Leon County

A ragged lean-to in a wooded area
Margie Menzel
/
WFSU Public Media
Many unhoused people prefer living in encampments rather than emergency shelters

The annual Point in Time Count of those who are unsheltered is underway in Leon County. Volunteers are assisting teams visiting areas where those who lack housing may be staying.

Based on last year's count, Leon County saw an overall 5 percent increase in homelessness. The number is much larger nationally.

Gina Jordan talked with Margie Menzel about her time spent with those working on the count.

GJ: Margie, the Point in Time Count continues this week, and a lot of groups have been out there doing this work. Tell us what they're doing.

MM: They're basically trying to find out as much as they can about why people are homeless and what their situation is, in hopes of helping. And I went with the HOST [Homeless Outreach Street Teams] deputies. They're from the Leon County Sheriff's Office, and they took me to an encampment. They had questions that they were surveying folks off their phone. And, you know, some of it was really specific about well, you know, ‘Were you in the military service?’ Some of it is, ‘Do you have a cognitive disorder? Are you on drugs or alcohol? Do you have HIV?’ And the people that they were asking seemed to know them. One of them even expected – ‘Hey, isn't it time for the Point in Time Count?’ 

GJ: Oh, wow. Okay, so they want to find out, are there veterans who are homeless? Are there families out there? And are drugs an issue? And they're counting, too. They're really trying to figure out how many people in our community are unhoused. 

MM: Absolutely, and that's going to be going on through Friday of this week. One of the people that I spoke with is Dee Jenkins. He's an intern. He's studying social work, and he does his internship at the Kearney Center, and so he was one of the volunteers who was basically looking for people downtown who are homeless and asking them what their situation is. 

DEE JENKINS: Early in the morning, I walked around a lot downtown near the LeRoy Collins Public Library, and just that whole general area. There was, like, seven people, I think we got around that time and managed to sit down with, talk about, you know, what's their life like? What are they going through? What can we do for them, get them connected to resources and just get their information. 

GJ: And we should say also that that we have had reporters go out, you've gone out. We don't take pictures. We're not allowed to record while it's actually happening. But Dee was telling us about what happens when, when he's out there doing his thing. So, you have been following the HOST unit for the local Point in Time Count this week. Tell us about that particular group. 

MM: So, that is from the Sheriff's Office. It started in June 2022. I went out with Paul Pacchioli, and he’s the same person that I went out with in June 2022. At that time, he took me to an encampment that he knew nobody was going to be in, just to see what an encampment looked like, basically. And yesterday, he was in a position to tell me more about what the HOST unit has accomplished and the trust they’ve been able to build with the people they’re trying to bring services to and ultimately house. 

DEPUTY PAUL PACCHIOLI: They feel like nobody sees them. And I think that’s what helps outreach be so successful is because we’re having those conversations. We see them on the street corners, we go have those conversations. They are still human beings, and we're going to treat them that way. And we're going to have those conversations and see if we can help, along with our service providers, and what they do to get these people to services that, you know, that they want or that can help them. 

MM: One thing that's really important to say, Gina, is that, according to Paul, at the beginning of the operation of the HOST unit, people would run away from them, but now they have whole relationships, and it was very clear that that Paul was familiar with the situations of the people he was talking with, and that they trusted him. 

GJ: Yeah, that's great. Let's talk about the relationship between those who are unsheltered and the business community. So, we've heard a bit about this, especially recently. We had a fire. It happened at an encampment off Mahan Drive, and business owners in that area were not happy with police response to loiterers. 

MM: They told one of our reporters that people had been defecating on the sidewalk next to their business. They had been going into the dumpster, which the businesspeople understood, and basically said, ‘Sure, you know, go ahead and get food. But do you have to strew it all over the parking lot?’ 

GJ: Right. Yeah. Well, we have a new state law now that bans people from sleeping in public spaces. Where are we with enforcement of that? 

MM: Well, according to everyone I've talked with, locally, we're in good shape. I had an interview recently with Leon County Commissioner Rick Minor, and he agrees. And then Paul Pacchioli told me the same thing. 

PP: I think one of the main things in that was the city and the county can't allow people to camp on, you know, city or county property. And the city and county haven't. Even since HOST has started, you know, if there's somebody, we go, we offer services, we educate them about they can't sleep on county property. And there's things like that. We try to get them some help or change the situation the best that we can in that moment. But yeah, we follow up with complaints from the county, and there's things like that. 

GJ: So, one positive takeaway from last year's count nationally is that the number of unhoused veterans is declining. We have research from the federal government that indicates that is due to coordinated investments in affordable housing and services. So, veterans are benefiting, but others are doing worse. And it sounds like the whole system for responding to homelessness is just underfunded. 

MM: Massively underfunded. The Federal ARPA funding that had been used for homelessness services here in Leon County, that's gone now. It was connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, and so it did have some very good uses, but they're gone. And now the county has been indicating to our nonprofits, 'Hey, you know, we're going to have to cut back on y'all so that we can spend more money on homelessness services.' There's just not enough money.

Gina Jordan is the host of Morning Edition for WFSU News. Gina is a Tallahassee native and graduate of Florida State University. She spent 15 years working in news/talk and country radio in Orlando before becoming a reporter and All Things Considered host for WFSU in 2008. Follow Gina: @hearyourthought on Twitter. Click below for Gina's full bio.
Follow @MargieMenzel

Margie Menzel covers local and state government for WFSU News. She has also worked at the News Service of Florida and Gannett News Service. She earned her B.A. in history at Vanderbilt University and her M.S. in journalism at Florida A&M University.