The Santa Maria/Santa Barbara Continuum of Care will hold its third Point in Time Count on Wednesday, Jan. 25, to determine the number of homeless people in Santa Barbara County.

The Continuum of Care is looking to get 400 volunteers throughout the county in order to receive an accurate count.

Volunteers must register online by Thursday, Jan. 19, have access to a smartphone, and attend an online training session. Sessions take place between Jan. 16 and Jan. 20.

To volunteer, visit: https://countyofsb.pointintime.info. 

The federal government requires an annual count in order to determine how much funding the county gets for homelessness programs, according to Jett Black-Maertz, senior housing program specialist for the county. 

The count also provides the county with a rough number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night, which allows housing program organizers to see where they should be targeting their efforts. 

Federal regulation states that the count must take place on one day during the last 10 days of January.

“The numbers are applicable across a wide range of things,” Black-Maertz said. “But most importantly, it brings more funding to our area, and also shows the performance levels of all of our systems that we have in place.”

Because the count takes place during one day only, it has some limitations.

“It gives us a snapshot of that night, but it doesn’t tell us, you know, overall trends,” Black-Maertz said. 

Volunteers arrive at deployment centers throughout the county between 4:45 and 5 a.m., and then are sent out on a rolling basis in groups of 3-6, depending on the population size they are surveying.

Volunteers are given hygiene packs as well as McDonald’s or Starbucks gift cards to give to the homeless people they encounter.

Volunteers ask the people questions such as how long they’ve been homeless, where was their last permanent address, and if they have any chronic health conditions.

“We want to make sure that they’re acknowledging that the people (volunteers) are speaking with are giving of their time and possibly re-traumatizing themselves by participating in these surveys,” Black-Maertz said.

“And so really making it so people don’t feel like we’re just taking information from them and leaving, we’re able to provide them with a little bit of support for that place to go get a warm meal or a cup of coffee.”

Volunteers travel everywhere from the Gaviota Coast to the Lompoc riverbed to cover all of the county, except for the Channel Islands. 

The entire process is completed in about four hours, Black-Maertz said.

Then the data is collected and checked for duplication. The names are anonymous, but volunteers take initials and birthdates in order to eliminate duplication.

“We don’t know the people’s names, we don’t know who they are, we don’t share the data with anyone other than the raw numbers to the federal government,” Black-Maertz said.

Over the past three years, data collected has shown that people living in vehicles make up about 50% of those experiencing homelessness in the county.

The point in time count from 2022 counted 1,962 homeless people. This was slightly more than the 2020 count (1,897 people), and the one in 2019 (1,803).

The breakdown by city for the 2022 homeless count includes two people from Guadalupe, 457 in Santa Maria, 290 in Vandenberg Village, 12 in Buellton, 91 in Goleta, 112 in Isla Vista, 822 in Santa Barbara, 22 in Carpinteria and 155 in unincorporated areas of the county.

The continuum works with the New Beginnings Safe Parking Program, which is a group that counts the cars of people experiencing homelessness.

The group goes out after the initial homelessness count, and searches for fogged up windows, an excessive amount of stuff, blankets, coverings over the windows or other markers that a person may be living in their car.

Volunteers are instructed not to knock on car windows of those suspected of being homeless, but rather take down the license plate number and location of the car.

What organizations have found over the past few years is a rise of single women experiencing homelessness, which Black-Maertz said can be attributed in part to the pandemic.

“We believe that we can draw a direct line to the impact that COVID has had, but the number of single women experiencing homelessness in that increase was fairly staggering.”

Black-Maertz said women were affected more because lots of jobs that were lost during the pandemic had more women working in, them such as the service industry and cleaning services. 

Another issue that affects Santa Barbara County in particular is the number of housing units available. Even if the county grants federally subsidized Section 8 housing, there simply are not enough units available.

“You can’t pay rent on something that doesn’t exist,” Black-Maertz said. “And so I think, as always with the story of Santa Barbara, the city as well as the county, the limited number of market rate units available to people experiencing homelessness or to just people in general has always been a barrier.

“We could receive rental assistance funding until we’re, you know, blue in the face. If there’s no units to match that with, then we have a big problem.”

Additionally, even if there are units available, landlords will still turn renters away with Section 8 vouchers despite it being illegal to discriminate against renters based on their source of rental funding in California.

“We’re really trying to work to combat that stigma, and communicate that no, this is actually a really reliable source of rent for you as the landlord because it’s government backed because it is funding that’s coming from the government. You don’t have to depend on that person keeping their job. It’s a payment that’s guaranteed.”