Sixty homeless people counted in area during survey

Do you see men, women and children sleeping on cots lined in rows in a large room? Do you see men huddled around a fire burning in a barrel under a bridge? Do you see an older woman pushing a grocery cart piled high with clothing, rags, newspapers and other items? Do you see a person looking for food in a restaurant’s dumpster? These are common images seen on television of homeless people living in large cities.

But these, too, are images of homeless people: A family living in a tent in a state park; a couple living out of their car; and a man living in an abandoned house that has no heat, no electricity and no running water. These are the images of homeless people living in rural Missouri.

Are there homeless people living in the Green Hills region? Yes. We may not want to acknowledge that there are homeless people living in our small towns and in the rural countryside, but they exist.

Staff and volunteers from Green Hills Community Action Agency participated in the Point in Time count of homeless people conducted Jan. 28. The statewide count was organized by the Missouri Housing Development Commission as part of the commission’s 2009 Continuum of Care planning process. The Continuum of Care concept is a community plan to organize and deliver housing services to homeless people in Missouri. These plans are tailored to the specific needs of each region in the state.

Green Hills Community Action Agency has programs to help homeless people in crisis and long-term to move them into stable housing and toward becoming self-sufficient. The number of homeless in the nine counties served by GHCAA is a factor in determining funding for these programs.

On Jan. 28, GHCAA staff, volunteers and community partners, many from local churches, counted 60 unsheltered homeless people in the nine-county region. During the previous count, 44 homeless people were confirmed living in the nine-county Green Hills area.

"We know there are more homeless people living in the region. This was the number of homeless confirmed on the day of the count," said Mary Garcia, GHCAA housing development assistant.

This number doesn’t include people who are sleeping on friends’ couches or otherwise considered to be "sheltered" homeless. Nor does it include homeless people who weren’t seen and those who didn’t want to be seen by the counters.

GHCAA staff is dedicated to working with community partners to combat the causes of poverty, which include the causes of homelessness, in the Green Hills region. If you would like to join the effort, contact the GHCAA service center in your county or call the Central Office in Trenton at 660-359-3907. We welcome your ideas and your help in making the Green Hills region a better place to live by building strong families and strong communities.