Thousands of homeless people in Riverside and San Bernardino counties will go uncounted in 2021 after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of both counties’ annual homeless counts.
Citing pandemic-related safety concerns, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave permission to cancel the counts, which normally take place the last week in January, Riverside County announced in a Monday, Dec. 28, news release. San Bernardino County also won’t do a count in 2021, county spokeswoman Felisa Cardona said.
In Riverside County’s release, Tanya Torno, who manages the county’s Homeless Continuum of Care — an alliance of government officials, homeless advocates and others that coordinates the count — called the decision a difficult one “but ultimately necessary to protect the health and safety of homeless residents, volunteers and staff.”
The 2021 count won’t be rescheduled, Tonyo said by phone Wednesday, Dec. 30.
In San Bernardino County, officials are “committed to looking at our other data sources to help us determine the extent and needs of our local unsheltered population to continue to serve their needs,” said Cardona, who added the county will still count homeless living in shelters in 2021.
Los Angeles County also plans to cancel its upcoming homeless count, which also would have been in January.
Every January, scores of volunteers at the break of dawn fan out in counties to reach out to the homeless and learn more about them and their needs. The yearly events give officials a better sense of who’s homeless, whether the homeless population is growing and which communities are seeing spikes in homelessness.
The 2020 count recorded 2,884 homeless in Riverside County — 2,155 unsheltered and 729 sheltered. The county’s number of unsheltered homeless rose 5% from 2019 to 2020 and 22% from 2018 to 2019.
Last year, Riverside County Supervisor Chuck Washington said the actual number of homeless is likely two to three times what’s actually counted. Among Riverside County homeless on the street, the number of veterans rose 5% from 2019 and there was a 41% increase in the number of homeless youths, although the homeless senior population fell 7% from 2019.
San Bernardino County in 2020 counted 3,125 people without shelter, up 19.9% from 2019 and 47.5% from 2018. Most of those counted in 2020 — 72.6% — were concentrated in eight cities.
While a count won’t happen in 2021, Tonyo said Riverside County is still sending outreach teams to contact homeless living on the streets. The teams take precautions to avoid spreading or contracting the coronavirus, said Tonyo, who works for the county’s Housing, Homelessness Prevention and Workforce Solutions Department.
Federal funding to help the homeless is tied to data obtained through the count. HUD will rely on 2020 data to determine funding allocations in 2021, Tonyo said.
Technically, HUD only requires the count to be done every other year, Tonyo said.
“We realize the importance of conducting the count, so we’ve done it every year,” she said.
To help the homeless survive the pandemic, the state of California launched Project Roomkey and later, Project Homekey to shelter homeless deemed especially at risk of serious illness from COVID-19.
San Bernardino County has helped 889 homeless individuals through Project Roomkey and other COVID-19 programs, Cardona said. In Riverside County, 870 homeless people have been helped through Project Roomkey.
