Homeless Count In Muskingum County

Tuesday night a group of volunteers gathered to count the homeless in Muskingum County.

A diverse group of volunteers met at the Salvation Army to take part in a four hour point-in- time street count. Each group was given a place to look for the homeless. To be safe a man was with them and everyone had flashlights. The count started last year and some volunteers returned to help again.

" My heart goes out to the homeless people I work here in the homeless shelter and ah I there’s a lot of them that’s missing and they need to be accounted for and they need to be helped" said Terina Saxton, volunteer.

Each group had two back packs filled with care packages which included hygiene materials and food to give to the people they found. Saxton says she hopes with the information they gathered tonight, they”ll be able to prevent homelessness in the future.

"It’s important for a lot of reasons. first of all it is required by HUD of the Continuum of Care we do have some funding and in order to maintain that we have to do this count. The other thing is it gives us an idea of the unmet need of the homeless citizens here in town and  we are going around with care packages. So it’s about helping those people who need help right now" said Patrick Skilliter, Acting Co-Chair.

Skiliter feels the results will be similar to last year when 19 people were found living on the streets.