EVERETT — Few people expect that their lives will ever take a turn that leads them to sleeping on the sidewalk covered with a blanket, or finding shelter in a cold, damp, shadowed corner under a freeway overpass.
Sometimes it begins with an injury that leads to the loss of a job. For others, like a 43-year-old woman walking along the side of Eclipse Mill Road on Thursday morning, it was the end of a 14-year relationship that she said involved both drug use and domestic violence. As she told her story of not only losing her housing but her children, too, she broke down in tears.
She was one of the people found by volunteers who fanned out across the county Thursday for a 12-hour search for people who are homeless, called the Point in Time survey.
Volunteers asked each person a short list of questions, such as how long they had been homeless. Then the volunteers informed them of where they could get help finding temporary housing, mental health services and drug and alcohol counseling.
The annual count is at best an estimate, a one-day census of people willing to identify themselves as having no permanent housing.
“A lot of homeless people want to stay hidden,” said Robin Hood, a grants manager for the county’s Human Services department.
In Everett, surveyors Memory Meader and Kirsten Murray, who work at Catholic Community Services, found several dozen people had gathered on the sidewalk near the Everett Gospel Mission’s mens shelter on Smith Avenue. Some were standing, passing the time. Others, like Annie Gjesvold, 47, said they had spent the night there.
Gjesvold said she has been homeless for six months. “We know this is illegal,” she said of sleeping on the sidewalk. It’s not fun being alone in the middle of the night, she said, especially for a woman. “It’s rugged out here.”
Nearby, 34-year-old Randy Anderson said that he has been homeless for the past three months. Anderson said he was injured, went on disability, and then became homeless. “Once you’re homeless, it’s hard to get a job,” he said.
This is the ninth year the annual one-day count of the homeless has been conducted in Snohomish County. Final results are expected at the end of the month.
Last year, the survey found 1,272 people without permanent housing, including 146 families. The annual homeless count began in 2006 with a goal of eliminating homelessness in Snohomish County by 2016.
The yearly survey is required by federal agencies that send taxpayer money to the county and to local community groups which provide social services to the homeless.
Volunteers went to area parks and campgrounds near Monroe, Snohomish, Sultan and Gold Bar looking for the homeless.
The Salvation Army in Everett provided supplies for volunteers to hand out, such as jackets, blankets, and packets with socks, hats, snacks, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.
Rob Robertson, who works on veterans issues at Catholic Community Services, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the number of homeless veterans found during this year’s survey increased slightly. This despite the work by the Everett Vet Center on Wetmore Avenue, a satellite office of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The number of homeless veterans found during the annual survey has declined the past two years, with 99 found during the 2013 survey and 71 last year.
“This generation of war-weary veterans has seen a good bit of combat,” Robertson said. “Some will have issues and need assistance from the county.”
A number of community groups are working to help veterans with issues such as housing, medical and dental services and help finding a job. Veterans say it takes a little less time to get into housing in Snohomish County and the rent is a little cheaper, drawing veterans from King and Pierce counties, and even from other states, Robertson said.
Mitch Croy, who helps run a weekly meals program at the Everett Salvation Army, said it’s hard to tell how much the upswing in the economy has affected homelessness.
People turning out for the Salvation Army’s free dinner program on Monday and Tuesday nights aren’t just homeless. They include college students, people on Social Security and others, he said.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.
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