Twin City Mission asking for help in identifying the homeless

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – The Brazos Valley Coalition for the Homeless is about to start counting the unhoused population across the area, and they will need some help.

It is all for a country-wide yearly survey called the Point in Time Count or PIT. Here locally that means figuring out how many people are homeless across the seven counties. That includes individuals who are sheltered and those who are unsheltered. The coalition will begin the survey on Thursday.

Twin City Mission is part of the coalition. The non-profit’s director of community relations, Ron Crozier, said that while they may have people ready to go, and they’ve planned this for months, they still need the community to help pitch in.

“What we’re asking for now is help from the communities, the seven counties of the Brazos Valley, that if they know of any homeless individuals, there is a hotline that they can call and that they can leave information with and these teams can take that information and go to those locations,” Crozier said.

Some tell-tell signs that someone might be homeless are if they’re living in conditions that weren’t meant to be livable such as sleeping in their vehicle, Crozier said.

“The theory is out of sight, out of mind, if you don’t see them, they don’t exist and that’s really descriptive of the homeless population, they do exist,” Crozier said. “They are in Bryan and College Station and the surrounding six counties. We know they’re there, the agencies know they are there and we need to get help identifying their locations.”

Crozier said that most people associate metro areas with the homeless population, but that’s not the reality.

“What we’ve found especially in the outer communities they tend to think they don’t have homeless problems in their community because if they identify someone who is homeless they bring them to the shelter in Bryan,” Crozier said. “All you have to do is drive under the bridges, or go behind Buccees or go to another one of these stores and you will see these people there.”

The survey also helps the coalition identify the needs of the homeless population which allows them to apply for funding which will be used to create new programs.

“It just takes someone willing to roll up their sleeves and go out there and make that identifying contact and then following through with it,” Crozier said. “ It’s incumbent upon us to take this data and take it up the chain to the federal level so that when it comes time to allocate resources they can come back down to the local level and serve our people.”

Based on recent weeks Crozier expects they might see above-average numbers this year.

“We’ve seen a slight increase at our shelter, so if we see an increase there we know there are more people out there that we haven’t counted yet,” Crozier said.

While the PIT count isn’t perfect, Crozier said it’s the best way they have to count the number of homeless individuals. The coalition will also be giving out bags filled with socks, blankets, toothpaste, shampoo and more to every homeless person they identify.

Those who are homeless or would like to report someone homeless can do so at the homeless hotline at 979-589-0635.