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Homeless1.jpg
The primary purpose of the One Night Count is to document how many people still lack basic shelter. Volunteers have been counting the homeless in Seattle, one night in January, for the past 33 years. (Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness photo)

Walking Seattle in dead silence, counting the homeless

January 24, 2013 @ 6:17 pm (Updated: 9:02 am - 1/25/13 )

Two sets of tennis shoes stick out from a wool blanket. The gray, worn soles appear to belong to a man. The small pink shoes next to them would fit a child.

Two people huddled in a doorway of a business off 1st Avenue and Blanchard were among the thousands of people who live and sleep on the streets of Seattle.

A few years ago, I crawled out of my warm bed at 1:00 in the morning to meet with hundreds of other volunteers to count the homeless living on the streets.

It's a project The Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness has done for 33 years. The mission was simply to count the number of homeless people living on the streets.

1, 2, 3,...

We whisper as we check our maps. With flashlights, we walk an area from 5th Avenue to the Seattle Waterfront, and from Stewart Street to Battery Street. It's about a 35 block area.

13, 14, 15,...

We begin to count every person we see huddling under a blanket, staying in a tent or cardboard box, and sleeping in a car. We don't interact with anyone. We don't wake anyone up. We just count.

27, 28, 29,...

Most of the homeless were bundled under layers of blankets or tarp. It's difficult to know whether they are men or women. A few are walking around. A security guard urged one man sitting in a doorway to keep moving.

44, 45, 46,...

You don't know your city until you walk it in the dead silence of the night; looking for the people most of us try to avoid seeing during the day.

89, 90, 91.

The Noel House team I was with counted 91 homeless people in our assigned area. In all there were 2,140 unsheltered homeless in King County the year I did the count in 2007.

In 2012 2,594 men, women, and children were without shelter during the three hour street count.

This year 2,736 homeless were counted, which is a five-percent increase over last year.

Over 900 volunteers went out with 125 trained team leaders to pre-arranged areas in parts of Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Shoreline, Kenmore, Bothell, Woodinville, Kent, Federal Way, Renton, Auburn, and White Center.

"The results are impossible to misinterpret: several thousand men, women, and children lack safety and stability," says Alison Eisinger, organizer of the count.

"When hundreds of people see their neighbors sleeping on cardboard or riding buses to keep warm, they are shocked and saddened. We want them to be inspired to urge their local and state officials to address these needs with resources."

By LINDA THOMAS

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Comments (35)


  • Add A Comment

  • sportsguru wrote...
    Chuck, I am sorry that you feel that I despise the homeless
    January 25, 2013 8:25 am

    Because that is so far from the truth, what I despise is people that THROW IN THE TOWEL. How many homeless people have you let sleep on your couch, given jobs too, money too to clean up, clothe themselves, use your computer, your car, mingle with your kids, tutored, called in favors to get an apartment only to see them lose it all and end right back up on the street. How many have you actually talk too and actually got the tearful truth out of them on why they have a hard time staying CONSISTENT in being responsible for there own LIVES.

    I have done all of the above for family members and friends and on very rare occasions when I was a single man, a complete stranger who convinced me that they were just the product of very BAD LUCK.

    So I don't wont to here your bible versus, your holier than thou I am better than you because I am doing "gods work" mentality.

    I know some people that work extremely hard every day who lives on the poverty level and they prioritize what they need, HOUSING AND FOOD, they work odd jobs and temporary jobs for the last several years moving from job to job scratching out a living, I have major respect for these types of individual because even though there situation would make any man cry, they never ever say quit trying to take care of themselves and guess what, these people are dying weekly as well, I have been to so many funerals, it's not even funny.

    If you can make $50-$100 a day panhandling, get free meals (some eat better than low wage workers working there butts off), bus tokens, shelters, I5 bridge or whatever, why can't they use the numerous resources to get off the street, I have seen the same people on the street for 5 yrs or more.

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  • William Lawn wrote...
    Best one is the people who panhandle at the 509 518 junction down in Burien
    January 25, 2013 10:25 am
    At the end of a "hard day", they get picked up in a brand new and enormous Ford Van.

    Filled with other panhandlers, it would appear.

    I'd love to know the story behind that one.

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  • It's me! Ha ha! wrote...
    Chuck Gould
    January 25, 2013 1:34 pm
    You are just as myopic as any other left winger that I have encountered. Government using my tax dollars to attract the vagrants and downtrodden to this city is no different that feeding pigeons. The more you do it they more that show up and the more that crap on everything. Maybe you cannot or will not accept this but I have no problem with me or you giving beggars food clothing encouraging them to get out of homelessness and get a job. Choke and puke's are hiring. So when you come here and criticizer those of us who help them off the public dole and take care of themselfs you end up looking like the hate filled individual that you attempt to pant us as.
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