The Saginaw County Consortium of Homeless Assistance Providers (SC-CHAP) member agencies will be hitting the streets on Wednesday January 22, 2025, in an effort to count the unsheltered homeless in Saginaw County.

Volunteers from member agencies and throughout the community will participate in the required annual Point-In-Time (PIT) street count to determine the state of homelessness in our community. This HUD-mandated street count happens each year in the last ten days of January in an effort to determine the number of homeless across the country. The data gathered during this PIT count will be sent to HUD, who will then report the numbers to Congress. HUD uses the information received to gauge the state of homelessness, identify regional and national trends and to measure the efficacy of homeless services in each community. Additionally, HUD uses the information gathered to report to Congress so that Congress can allocate funding to communities. Congress also uses the information to identify where additional resources may be needed for communities hardest hit by homelessness.

Volunteers will be stationed at strategic points in the community to interface with customers of community services. Other volunteers will be canvassing neighborhoods in an effort to identify, engage and provide immediate service to anybody identifying themselves as homeless.

For further information or to volunteer for the PIT Count, please contact the SC-CHAP Coordinator, Erin Riley at the United Way of Saginaw at: eriley@unitedwaysaginaw.org.

The following excerpt is from the mlive.com article by Chris Ehrmann on February 15th. You can access the full article by clicking HERE.

SAGINAW, MI – Homelessness organizations in Saginaw are getting over $2 million in federal grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD’s Continuum of Care grants will provide support to 5,800 local programs across the nation that help get individuals and families experiencing homelessness back into homes. In Saginaw, several organizations are getting federal dollars to keep their programs going.

HUD has recently announced FY23 awards. For a listing of the FY23 awards click on the link below:

FY23 HUD Awards

First what is a point in time count?  A point in time count is a count on a single night of the people in a community who are experiencing homelessness; that includes both sheltered and unsheltered populations.

Every year the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities receiving federal funds for Homeless Assistance to conduct sheltered counts of people living in emergency shelter or transitional housing. Every other year, HUD requires communities to conduct unsheltered counts of people living in a place unfit for human habitation (such as in an abandoned building or in a park).  The Saginaw CoC conducts both counts annually.

HUD requires that these counts occur during the last week of January.  Point-in-time counts are important because they establish the dimensions of the problem of homelessness and help policymakers and program administrators track progress toward the goal of ending homelessness. Collecting data on homelessness and tracking progress can inform public opinion, increase public awareness, and attract resources that will lead to the eradication of the problem.

HUD uses this information to present a report to Congress. This report is meant to inform Congress about the number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. and the effectiveness of HUD’s programs and policies in decreasing those numbers. Congress also uses this data to help determine funding levels for HUD.

On the local level, point-in-time counts help communities plan services and programs to appropriately address local needs, measure progress in decreasing homelessness, and identify strengths and gaps in a community’s current homelessness assistance system.

If you’d like to volunteer contact: jcovert@unitedwaysaginaw.org

Editor’s note: MSN is running a series of news articles for November with the focus of ‘Poverty In America’. This linked article on the MSN news website originally appeared in The Business Insider with MSN news partner Mark Abadi reporting.

HUD has released it’s 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report detailing the state of homelessness in America. For a special MSN News Report see this link:

MSN Homeless Article

and for the full text of the HUD report click HERE.