TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Hundreds of volunteers Thursday combed Tarrant County parking lots, fields and streets to tally people experiencing homelessness.
The annual "point-in-time" count and survey, which takes place nationwide, provides valuable data that should inform policymakers' decisions.
"We are doing this to get a snapshot of what homelessness looks like in our community," Tarrant County Homeless Coalition (TCHC) executive director Lauren King said Thursday.
TCHC coordinated the canvassing in Tarrant County. Roughly 400 volunteers visited camps and other areas where people experiencing homelessness are known to congregate.
Police officers accompanied teams of three to five to search assigned regions.
"Our goal is to cover the whole city," King said.
This year's count is especially important for Tarrant County, which saw a significant increase in homelessness for the first time in years in 2023. Despite the area's growth, the number of people experiencing homelessness around Fort Worth had largely remained flat.
New data will help determine whether there is a developing problem in Tarrant County.
This point-in-time also represents the first tally since Congress ended pandemic-related enhancements to federal safety net programs.
"We have a lot of systems in place in our society, unfortunately, that make it easier to fall into homelessness," Transition Resource Action Center (TRAC) housing program manager Tara Gordon said. "Many people are one paycheck away from being homeless themselves."
Gordon and her colleagues are among the hundreds who canvased Thursday night.
"It's a different way to see people," she said. "We have gotten really numb and conditioned to seeing that person on a street corner, holding up a sign, and we look away."
Volunteers administered voluntary surveys Thursday, including questions about demographics, military status and substance use, to the people they encountered. Most important, workers mapped each person's location so an outreach crew can return and connect those people to resources.
"We know that tonight might be a first big step," Gordon said.
The Tarrant County Homeless Coalition aims to tabulate the numbers and release a report, including analysis, by March.