On any day, roughly 600 people are homeless in Billings.Included in that number are about 80 families.
It’s not an exact number, but it’s based on an annual Januarysurvey that attempts to contact the homeless and get information onthe size and complexity of the problem.
The next survey is set for Jan. 27. It will coincide withProject Community Connect, a daylong effort to connect the homelesswith services that could make their lives easier.
Analysis of the 2010 data shows that during the course of ayear, 2,400 people in Billings have a brush with homelessness. Bysome measures it’s even higher. Clarence Salley, manager ofRiverStone Health’s Healthcare for the Homeless project, estimatesthat 3,000 homeless people sought health care in Yellowstone Countyin 2011.
The causes are numerous and varied, often complicated by mentalillness or substance abuse.
Billings’ homeless are not usually the people seen panhandlingon the streets, said Carmen Gonzalez, team leader of the MentalHealth Center’s P.A.T.H. program. Many are “invisible.”
Some couch-surf among relatives and friends. Others stay inshelters or hole up in cheap motels. A few have short-term housingat the detention center or medical facilities.
Others have no roof at all, sleeping in “camps” secreted in thecommunity or in discreetly parked vehicles. About 150 people, 23percent, sleep outside on most nights.
Gonzalez knows many of them by their first names, knows theirhistory and understands their prospects. P.A.T.H. is an acronym forProjects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness. Itsoffices at The Hub in downtown Billings are often the first orsecond place that desperate people go for help.
“People don’t realize how difficult it is out here,” Gonzalezsaid. “When you’re homeless, there is a lot of panic and fear thatgoes with it. Housing is very hard to find. We’re in desperate needof emergency housing.”
The biggest increase is in the number of families, she said.
“We’re seeing people now who lost jobs, lost their insurance andcan’t make their mortgage payment. Families that are coming are notthe usual families we see here,” she said.
On Jan. 27, the P.A.T.H. team and representatives of dozens ofother agencies, charities, churches, businesses and groups willcome together at the Al Bedoo Shrine Auditorium between 9 a.m. and4 p.m. for Project Community Connect. Homeless people and those whocould become homeless are invited every year to this one-stopintroduction to an array of community services.
Last year, in a single day, 577 individuals were assisted by 154volunteers, 50 service providers and 47 sponsoring partners anddonors. In a few hours, 215 housing applications were processed bythe Housing Authority of Billings; 112 people received flu shotsfrom RiverStone Health’s Healthcare for the Homeless; 90 people gothaircuts from the Academy of Nail, Skin and Hair at New AttitudeStyling Salon; 21 people made dental appointments at RiverStoneDental; 494 single-ride bus passes were distributed by MET Transit;500 lunches were served by the Billings Food Bank; and 20 people inneed of emergency shelter got one-night hotel vouchers from theSalvation Army.
Medical and legal services will also be available, as well asconnections with potential employment.
In conjunction with Project Community Connect, volunteers willconduct the annual Montana Housing Status survey. It’s part of anationwide survey done every year since 2001 to gauge the natureand extent of homelessness in the United States.
Although participation is anonymous and voluntary, contacting asmany homeless people as possible is important. The survey helpsdetermine the distribution of approximately $2.2 million in grantsfrom the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development eachyear.
Gonzalez said she is asking the community to help by letting herand others know about homeless people who might not otherwise becounted. Police officers, postal workers, ambulance crews,firefighters and utility workers who are out and about thecommunity every day are especially good sources of locating thehomeless, she said.
Gonzalez can be reached at The Hub at 248-4803, ext. 101. LyndaWoods, in the city’s Community Development Coordinator’s Office,can also take the information at 657-8284. Woods facilitates theMayor’s Committee on Homelessness.
She said the basic question will be the same as that of othersurveys conducted around the country: Where did you sleep on thenight of Jan. 26?
The survey will be broken into two parts. Surveys will be takenat local shelters, at Project Community Connect, at the jail and atother places where the homeless are found on Jan. 27. Either thesame night or the next day, outreach workers will look for thosewho are living on the streets.
Woods said she believes numbers will be up this year, bothbecause of efforts to make the count more accurate and because ofthe state of the economy.