"One Night Count" finds 15 percent increase in street homelessness in King County

Homelessness in King County increased 15 percent over last year, according to the annual One Night Count in King County that was held in today's freezing early morning hours.

The 2,631 homeless counted by 925 volunteers who spread throughout the county between 2 a.m. and 5:30 this morning were found sleeping in their vehicles, parks, all-night Metro buses and locations other than emergency shelters or transitional housing.

It'll take two months to gather the statistics from the shelters and housing units, said Alison Eisinger, director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, which sponsored the count.

When those numbers are included, she said, an estimated 6,000 homeless will be added, for a total of some 8,600.

The count is done not only to bring attention to the homeless issue, said Eisinger, but because a count is necessary to qualify for federal assistance under the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. Last year, the county got $18.4 million under the act.

Where volunteers look

It was numbingly cold as a group of volunteers picked their way along a frozen stream near downtown Bellevue, scrambled up a steep embankment and peered into the secluded, shadowy depths under an overpass.

Nestled behind a huge concrete pillar was a little living room, complete with table, chairs, and metal shelving units. The volunteers' flashlights danced along the concrete walls, revealing a figure huddled against the wall in a sleeping bag. The figure — a man — sat up, without saying a word, and stared back at the group.

The five volunteers left quickly after counting a handful of people who were sleeping in the homeless encampment.

One Night Count volunteers searched parking lots and transit centers, where some people sleep in their cars. They searched business complexes that by day are occupied by professionals but where by night others find shelter in parking lots and hidden in the landscaping. And they searched wooded areas, sometimes just off main streets, that some homeless people turn into camps just out of view.

"I'm struck by the dignity of some of these camps; some are very tidy," said Marilyn Mason-Plunkett, president and CEO of Hopelink, the Eastside's largest social service agency, who was among the volunteers searching for homeless people in Bellevue.

As the temperatures dipped into the upper 20s, the group trod into small thickets of forested areas in the city's core. The volunteers crunched through brush glittering with frost, pulling back tree limbs and carefully shining flashlights into the protected clearings.

Often, there was obvious evidence of encampments; abandoned sleeping bags and bottles, cans and wrappers strewn about. In one such encampment, just yards from a major intersection, a child-sized teddy bear was the lone inhabitant of a well-used camp, the stuffed toy perched on an old metal bed frame and mattress.

"That's just sad," Altimore said, as she peered in with a flashlight. She believed many were chased away from their normal camps in search of a warm place to spend the night.

At another outcropping of trees near a freeway onramp, the group found a person bundled deep under sleeping bags and blankets. A tarp had been slung between the branches, and a bike leaned against a tree trunk, while a red cooler sat nearby. It was a tidy home, all but invisible to the thousands of cars that pass daily, and in the shadow of a new high-rise building under construction across the street.

"Great strides"

The One Night Count, now in its 28th year here, found sizable increases in the homeless between 1998 and 2004, when the same areas were compared from one year to the next.

The street counts in 2006 and 2007, showed reductions of unsheltered homeless of 4 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Bill Block, project director of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, said he viewed today's count "as a snapshot, and not a terribly scientific snapshot."

"I tend to think of this night as more of a reminder that so many people are homeless, rather than a measuring stick of how many are," Block said.

He said a new counting system that's just been established will provide more accurate trends.

Meanwhile, Block said that in the past three years, 1,400 housing units for the homeless have been created, giving shelter to at least 2,800 people.

"We've been making some great strides," he said.

This morning's count also included 140 people in severe weather shelters, which opened up because of the freezing temperatures.

Seattle had the major share of the homeless in the One Night Count — 1,976 of the 2,631.

A total of 13 of the county's 25 most-populated municipalities, from Woodinville to Federal Way, took part in the count.

For the first time, Auburn took part, and found 40 homeless in its midst.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com. Rachel Tuinstra: 206-515-5637 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com.