By Hector Gonzalez
Special to The Lookout

January 25, 2016 -- Los Angeles County now has a strategy in place to end homelessness, but first officials need to know the actually size of the population living on the streets.

To determine that number locally and to establish a baseline number for use when applying for federal homeless grants and housing assistance, Santa Monica is rallying volunteers for its annual homeless count.

Volunteers will meet on Wednesday, January, 27, at St. Monica Catholic Community – Grand Pavilion, 725 California Avenue. The count begins at 10:30 p.m. and continues until 2 a.m. Thursday.

Volunteers should be prepared to devote up to 2 hours of their time. Organizers suggest counters wear layers of clothing and comfortable shoes.

Teams of three to four volunteers will be assigned specific geographic areas of the City to cover, either by walking or driving.

Some teams will walk to their destinations then walk each street and alley to count, other teams will drive up and down streets and alleys counting, and some teams will drive to their destinations then walk streets and alleys to count.

After they finish counting, teams will return to St. Monica to double check tally sheets and report with City staff.

Last year's count found 738 homeless people in Santa Monica, including those living in temporary shelters.That was a slight increase, about 0.5 percent, over last year's tally. The biggest increase was in the number of people found living in cars, campers and in street encampments.

Last year's count estimated that more than 44,000 people were homeless in Los Angeles County, the nation's second-highest homeless population.

Over three days, from Tuesday January 26 to Wednesday, January 28, 6,000 volunteers will fan across unincorporated county areas for the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.

A new urgency among county officials to end homelessness once and for all, re-emphasized this winter by predictions of heavy rains from El Nino, resulted in the recently adopted County of Los Angeles Homeless Initiative.

Approved by the county Board of Supervisors earlier this month, the plan asks cities like Santa Monica to contribute resources for “rapid rehousing” of thousands of homeless people (Santa Monica and Other Cities Asked to Take Larger Role in Helping the Homeless, January 13, 2016).

Santa Monica already invests more than $2.7 million a year on homeless programs and services, directing that grant money to local nonprofits that provide housing, healthcare and employment services, Human Services Administrator Margaret Willis told The Lookout.

A chronic shortage of local housing for the homeless continues to frustrate Santa Monica officials, Willis said.

One solution has been the City's Project Homecoming, which links homeless people with family member willing to take them in. Since its inception in 2006, the program has taken 1,750 people off the streets in this way, Willis said.

On the county level, the comprehensive homeless plan seeks to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place by stepping up efforts to eviction protections and providing financial counseling and legal services for people and families on the verge of losing their places of residence.

The initiative also calls on stricter monitoring to ensure landlords have “good cause” before initiating evictions. It also would create a countywide tenant protection or anti-harassment ordinance.

In Santa Monica, volunteers for the City's homeless count can register online at www.santamonicahomelesscount.com.

For more information, call the Human Services Division, 310-458-8701.