Mary Lou Willoughby wasn’t expecting to find any homeless people out so early in the day, and she was right.
Willoughby, of Sauk Village, Ill., and her driving buddy drove around Gary’s east side in her cheery blue Volkswagen Beetle, searching for homeless or precariously housed people to include in the annual national Point in Time homeless count Wednesday. They stopped at a dollar store in the city’s Miller section as well as the McDonald’s on Lake Street, looking for people down on their luck.
Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it – the homeless tend to come out at night, Willoughby said. That might seem counterproductive, but many people feel better moving under the cover of darkness, she said.
“People harass them in the daytime, so they come out a dusk and stay out until the early morning,” Willoughby said.
The time of day won’t matter to the volunteers counting Lake County’s homeless population, said Sharron Liggins, executive director for Continuum of Care, the organization that handles Indiana’s 1A region. The groups will work late into the night in order to complete the count in Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, Lake Station and Hobart.
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The deadline is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s mandate.
“We do this every year during the fourth week of January because we need to get an unduplicated count,” Liggins said. “Doing it on the 27th each year helps us get a closer handle on the numbers from year-to-year as well as determine who they are.”
“Who they are” has changed over the past couple years, Liggins said, some for the better. Housing developments such as the 60-unit South Shore Commons in Gary, for example, provides permanent housing support for mentally ill and differently abled people, while a 44-unit housing development also in the city houses homeless veterans, Liggins said.
A third, 40-unit development by Sojourner Truth House, meanwhile, will one day house displaced families, she said. It’s scheduled to break ground in the spring.
“The housing has increased, so that’s good, but the population is rising,” Liggins said. “Women and and children are the fastest-growing, identified population.”
Still, the numbers have decreased: In 2015, Liggins’ group counted 260 homeless people — defined as either temporarily homeless or chronically homless, or those who’ve had four episodes totally 12 months over the span of three years — and that’s down from 348 in 2014, she said. The group also counted 188 homeless families, comprising at least two people, in 2015.
A lot more people are using transitional housing, such as Sojourner Truth House, which sees 2,000 people per year, as well, Liggins added.
The state is also helping its homeless population with House Bill 1380, said Point in Time Count Coordinator Carlotta Blake-King, of Hammond. Introduced Wednesday and co-sponsored by Rep. Donna Harris, D-East Chicago, the program would establish a housing authority to provide housing and support services for eligible homeless persons without precondition or requirement no later than Jan. 1, 2017.
The group’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed in high places, either. Blake-King forwarded a letter from President Barack Obama acknowledging the efforts of many.
“Since launching ‘Opening Doors’ in 2010, homelessness rates have sharply fallen, and our communities have made tremendous strides in reducing homelessness overall, including among America’s families and the chronically homeless,” Obama wrote.
Willoughby said she volunteered to count in order to find where homeless people reside. For her, it’s a mission of kindness.
“At my church, we weave mats out of plastic bags,” she said, showing one of the colorful mats, rolled up like a yoga mat. “They’re waterproof, they keep folks off the ground and heat reflects back on them. Plus, rodents can’t chew through them. In the winter, we try to roll up a blanket with the mats for further protection,” she said.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.