The Upshur County Homeless and Housing Coalition hopes to get an accurate count of the county’s homeless population in February.
Mountain CAP of WV Executive Director Kathy McMurray attended the Feb. 3 Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur meeting to explain how the housing coalition determines how many homeless people live in Upshur County.
“Many of you may know that I chair the Upshur County Homeless and Housing Coalition, which is not an entity in and of itself; it’s strictly just a group of people in the community who meet once a month, on the second Wednesday of every month, at the Parish House at 1:30 p.m., and try to see what we can do around housing and the needs of the unhoused,” McMurray said. “In January, there was supposed to be a point-in-time count, which is conducted by HUD — Housing and Urban Development. However, our local West Virginia coalition that oversees the statewide effort to do the point-in-time count decided to delay that until February because of the bad weather and the cold temperatures.”
A point-in-time count is a nationwide effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that takes a snapshot of homelessness across the country. The data helps communities measure the scope of homelessness in their area and guides federal funding decisions for housing and shelter programs.
The county count was originally scheduled to take place Jan. 28-29, and now it will happen Feb. 25-26.
“We start at 4 p.m. on Wednesday; it goes overnight until 3:59 p.m. on the following Thursday, so that gives us a snapshot in time across the country of how many homeless there are,” McMurray said. “They also do some shelter counts to include in the numbers.”
McMurray reported how the homeless coalition spent the funds granted to them by the Rotary Club.
“Mountain CAP acted as the fiscal agent for the Upshur County Homeless and Housing Coalition, and we requested $1,200, which we spent toward 30 tents; 10 sleeping bags that came also with a hat and gloves (we had to buy the extra 20 out of a different fund); 30 rechargeable hand warmers; first-aid kits; flashlights; and some reusable straws,” McMurray said. “We had $30 left, and Kelley [Tierney] told me we should put that toward food, which we did, because we served a meal on that Thursday at the Family Support Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.”
Although the point-in-time count was postponed, the distribution of supplies was already advertised, so the coalition offered the prepared supplies anyway.
“We did collect some information, so if those folks don’t show back up in February, we still have their information, if we know they’re still on the streets,” McMurray said. “We tried to do a meal in Rock Cave with the Parish House on the Wednesday evening the count [was to have started]. However, due to the weather and logistics, we couldn’t use the Parish House location, but we used the Banks District Community Center. No homeless people showed up at that event.”
On Thursday, the coalition was able to hand out six backpacks and left two more in Rock Cave in case someone needed one.
“We’ve only distributed eight out of the 30 backpacks, so we’ll have those for the February count when we do that,” McMurray said. “We’re very appreciative of the funds. Mountain CAP contributed the backpacks and portable chargers, so the rechargeable hand warmers will be able to be recharged.”
