This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Across the state, public, private and nonprofit homeless service providers are seeking out homeless people for the annual Point-in-Time count, a huge effort that involves the Department of Veterans Affairs, state agencies, police, religious groups, hospitals, clinics, homeless service providers and many volunteers.
For Valley Mental Health — one of the participants — Margie Reckard and Tony Basco proved especially helpful because their own decades of living rough have given them intimate knowledge of where to find homeless people.
On Thursday, Reckard and Basco were in the van with Kelly Olson Bowers, a program manager for the mental health group, and Shad West, of the Utah Department of Community and Culture, as they roamed the streets around Salt Lake City's industrial side.
The couple wearing backpacks walking down the sidewalk? Homeless. "You can tell by the kind of backpack," said Reckard.
So were the men having a cookout at Jordan Park, the people who parked vans near a large service station on California Avenue, the men panhandling at busy intersections.
At each spot, Basco approached with bags full of socks, soap, washcloths, candy and other sundries. In his easy way, as a comrade, he asked the people he guessed were homeless whether Bowers could talk to them about where they slept the night of Wednesday, Jan. 26.
Sometimes, the people, mostly men, declined, or sped away, or denied they were homeless. Others let Bowers run through the 2-page surveys that agencies will use to create a report in the spring. The survey is part of the state's 10-year plan to reduce chronic homelessness, an effort that began in 2006 and by last year showed significant success.
In 2006, 13,362 people were homeless statewide for some period. Of those, 1,914 were chronically homeless, said Jayme Day, planning director for the Utah State Community Services Office.
By 2010, the number of people who experienced homelessness for some or part of the year had grown to 15,642, most of whom were re-housed within a short time. The number of people considered chronically homeless, however, had shrunk to just 812.
While the chronically homeless make up only about 5 percent of the overall total, they eat up 50 percent of the shelter, emergency service and other resources providers would rather reserve for families, said Bowers.
But a lot of couples, Reckard said, "would rather stay homeless than in shelters" because they get split up if they don't have children.
Reckard and Basco have been together since they met in Omaha 15 years ago, but it was only last summer that the chronically homeless pair, both in their 50s, landed apartments at Valley Mental Health's Safe Haven, southwest of The Gateway. —
Point-In-Time count
Agencies are surveying chronically homeless people in the state.