About the 2015 Greater L.A. Homeless Count

  VOLUNTEER AND REGISTER NOW

www.theycountwillyou.org

WHAT IS THE COUNT?
The 2015 Greater Los Ange­les Point-In-Time Count, led and man­aged by the Los Ange­les Home­less Ser­vices Author­i­ty (LAHSA), is how we deter­mine the num­ber of home­less neigh­bors we have in Los Ange­les Coun­ty on any giv­en night.

WHY DO WE COUNT HOMELESS PEOPLE?
We need to know the size and scope of home­less­ness through­out Los Ange­les Coun­ty. In order to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of our home­less res­i­dents, we need to know who they are and where they reside. The count is real­ly sec­ondary to our goal of help­ing home­less per­sons find per­ma­nent hous­ing. The data gath­ered from the count allows us to assess how and where home­less per­sons can best be served.

WHAT IS COMMUNITIES IN MOTION’s INVOLVEMENT?

Com­mu­ni­ties in Motion is coor­di­nat­ing and over­see­ing the 2015 Home­less Count in Ser­vice Plan­ning Areas (SPA) 5 & 8.  SPA 5’s des­ig­nat­ed coor­di­na­tor is Stephanie Inya­ma and SPA 8’s des­ig­nat­ed coor­di­na­tor is Grace Welt­man. We are work­ing in part­ner­ship with home­less coali­tions in each of the SPAs. com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, elect­ed offi­cial offices, cities, com­mu­ni­ties, and oth­er stake­hold­ers to ensure each region will have an active and engaged com­mu­ni­ty ded­i­cat­ed to ensur­ing their com­mu­ni­ty is counted.

• Stephanie Inya­ma’s email for the count is spa5homelesscount@lahsa.org
• Grace Welt­man’s email for the count is  spa8homelesscount@lahsa.org

WHY SHOULD I VOLUNTEER?

You can make an impor­tant impact in the lives of home­less men, women and chil­dren by vol­un­teer­ing your time and ser­vice to help out with the 2015 Greater Los Ange­les Home­less Count. Your con­tri­bu­tion goes well beyond your donat­ed time; by know­ing who and where home­less peo­ple are in Los Ange­les Coun­ty, we are able to:

Under­stand the Sit­u­a­tion In order to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of home­less men, women, chil­dren and vet­er­ans; we need to know who they are and where they live.

Bring Resources to Our Com­mu­ni­ty The data gath­ered from the Point-In-Time Count is  the  most pow­er­ful tool non­prof­its and local lead­er­ship have to make a case for addi­tion­al and spe­cial­ized resources.

Dri­ve Engage­ment Con­nect with lead­ers, cit­i­zens and oth­er stake­hold­ers in our Cities, Neigh­bor­hoods or Com­mu­ni­ties and cre­ate a vehi­cle to dri­ve fur­ther civic engage­ment and aware­ness of homelessness.

WHAT I WILL BE DOING AS A VOLUNTEER? 

There are many ways you can par­tic­i­pate to help make the Home­less Count a suc­cess. Vol­un­teer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties include:

• Vol­un­teer Recruiters to recruit vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in the Home­less Count by spread­ing the word through­out social cir­cles and rep­re­sent­ing staff at var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty events.
• Vol­un­teer Train­ers to be respon­si­ble for train­ing all Vol­un­teer Coun­ters at a spe­cif­ic Deploy­ment Site for up to 3 Train­ers take on a lead­er­ship role and must be com­fort­able giv­ing direction.
• Vol­un­teer Coun­ters to receive train­ing and mate­ri­als on the day of  the Count from  trained vol­un­teers and be deployed in groups of 2 – 3 to count spe­cif­ic blocks in an Coun­ters will be out­side count­ing for up to 4 hours.
• Office Vol­un­teers to be mak­ing phone calls to recruit vol­un­teers and help­ing with data entry dur­ing shifts of 1 – 3
• Deploy­ment Site Coor­di­na­tors to run a Deploy­ment Site dur­ing an 8‑hour shift, includ­ing set­up and cleanup, over­see­ing vol­un­teer train­ing and deploy­ment, and col­lect­ing and review­ing tal­ly Coor­di­na­tors take on a lead­er­ship role and must be com­fort­able giv­ing direction.

HOW DO I VOLUNTEER?

Vis­it www.TheyCountWillYou.org  to get more infor­ma­tion and sign-up as a vol­un­teer. If you would like to vol­un­teer in either SPA 5  or SPA 8,  please indi­cate when you sign-up.  You can also fill out a form here.