Teams search county to get rough count of homeless

The streetlights in the Crossroads-area parking lot shine strongly in the middle of the night, and Steve Roberts is not surprised to find an old white van parked at the lot, piled high with belongings.

"That's definitely a homeless car," Roberts says as he peers through the windshield. "All his worldly goods are in there."

Roberts keeps walking, past several other vans, RVs or trailers that show the telltale signs of occupation: extension cords running out the door, fogged windows, interior lights on or curtains tightly closed.

These are the things that more than 500 volunteers searched for across King County early Friday morning in the annual homeless count, organized by the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless and Operation Nightwatch.

Roberts was one of 45 volunteers who canvassed Eastside cities — Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland. Although the homeless count has operated for about 25 years in Seattle, this was only the second year the count included the Eastside.

Over about two hours of searching, the team found 49 homeless people sleeping outside or in cars on the Eastside, up from 37 during the last count in October 2004. Thirty-six were in Bellevue, nine in Kirkland and four in Redmond.

Tent City 4 in Bellevue also reported about 50 residents, down from 95 in 2004, when the camp was in Woodinville.

None of the numbers released Friday included the several thousand homeless people in shelters, who will be counted separately.

The volunteers found a total of 1,946 homeless people in King County in a count that spread from Federal Way to Shoreline. That was down from 2,216 people found in 2004.

Previously held each October, the count was moved to January this year because of new federal rules. More shelters are open during the winter months, which cuts down on the number of homeless people on the streets, said Nicole Macri, co-chairwoman of the Coalition for the Homeless.

Organizers say the annual counts aren't so much about exact numbers but about spreading awareness of homelessness. On the Eastside, the message is particularly important because many people still don't think they have homeless people in their cities, even while the number of people living on the streets seems to be going up, advocates say.

"There are people who don't want to know [about the problem]," said Meghan Altimore, a manager for Hopelink, the Eastside's largest social-service agency. "When they get a number that's proven, they can't ignore it any longer."

The actual number of Eastside homeless on the streets is probably twice as high as the number found Friday, said Roberts, who runs an Eastside shelter, Congregations for the Homeless, for 30 men. The count does not strive to be accurate, only a consistent representation of the homeless problem each year, organizers say.

More homeless might be coming to the Eastside because they no longer feel safe in Seattle, they can take advantage of more wooded areas on the Eastside, and Tent City 4's stay has spread awareness among the homeless that the Eastside is a viable place to live, Roberts said.

Friday morning, Roberts led a team of six people to three sites in the Crossroads neighborhood of Bellevue. They had strict rules: Look for the homeless — but not so hard that you wake anyone up or hurt yourself.

The teams don't generally go inside buildings, for example, or scale fences. When they see vehicles that appear occupied, as Roberts did several times, they look inside without knocking. And if the number of people inside can't be determined, they count each vehicle, whether it's an RV or a sedan, as two people.

Fraser Suyetsugu, a member of First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, says he joined the count to learn about the homeless in his hometown. "It's a hidden population," he said.

But when the team saw one man covered in a tarp under trees and another man wandering on the sidewalk, the reality of homelessness was hard to ignore.

"Just being out here in the cold and wet," Roberts said, "it ain't much fun."

Ashley Bach: 206-464-2567 or abach@seattletimes.com