The holiday season has come and gone and now it’s beginning to look a lot like the time to count all of the homeless in Guilford County.
In fact, that count, which is mandated by the US Department and Housing and Urban Development in order for local governments to receive funds, will start on Wednesday, Jan. 29.
The point-in-time count will be conducted with the aid of volunteers, community partners, local governments, police officers and sheriff’s deputies and area service providers under the direction of the Guilford County Continuum of Care – the local collective that takes the lead role in addressing the problem and administering services to the unhoused in Guilford County.
The project that will take place this week is an annual count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness. After the data is collected, it will be submitted to Housing and Urban Development, which uses the information to guide its service distribution and resource allocation to various communities across the country.
According to a Monday, Jan. 27 statement from Guilford County, this year, Guilford County Continuum of Care partners and volunteers will gather at Jamestown Presbyterian Church on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 29, and then again on Thursday, Jan. 30, to collect donations for distribution to the homeless.
The count will take about a week to complete.
This year, a Guilford County Geographic Information Systems team is lending a hand by providing a county-developed app that helps the volunteers conduct surveys as part of the point-in-time count.
In 2024, the count found 665 people – including children and elderly people– who were homeless in Guilford County. The actual number is no doubt much greater.
Local media outlets have been invited to cover the count this year, however, due to privacy concerns for those experiencing homelessness, reporters won’t be allowed to accompany volunteers when they’re surveying the homeless at encampments, shelters or other locations.
Everyone, however, is welcome to attend the point-in-time count home base meetings at Jamestown Presbyterian Church this week.
Local governments, the Continuum of Care and community organizations that battle homelessness have had a great deal of difficulty getting a handle on the problem, even though some entities– like Guilford County government – have adopted multiple programs to help, and are providing more beds for the homeless to sleep in.
While HUD finds the practice useful – and added effort goes into the project in odd years such as 2025 – many are skeptical of the count’s ability to accurately assess the problem.
One homeless man wrote into the Rhino Times recently in response to a previous article on the point-in-time count: “The yearly/bi-yearly counts are *Insert helpful verb here.*”
“These counts are wildly inaccurate due to numerous points that include the following,” he wrote. “People who manage to raise enough for a hotel room for a night or so when it’s so cold are missed,” and, “[Greensboro’s] new provision of eliminating homeless encampments and ‘Spots’ and going in and throwing all their belongings away merely makes the homeless less visible and more difficult to locate (which, as we know, is exactly what they wish to happen). The more you victimize a group, the more reclusive they will become in mainstream society. Less options for the charity of loving folk and neighbors means more are forced to crime or to find food and water just to survive.”
While sympathetic to the problem, area businesses and residents who exit in downtown Greensboro – and other areas where the homeless congregate – have said that the problem has had disastrous results on their businesses and living situations.
They have seen the problem get much worse in Greensboro in recent decades.
Last summer, Mike Haley, a well-known Greensboro businessman – now a Florida resident – who once owned a large number of McDonald’s restaurants, has an office on Summit Avenue in Greensboro. He told the Rhino Times that the homeless situation around his office had grown out of control over the years.
Haley said the result has been trash left everywhere along the street and on the premises, in addition to loitering, panhandling, interference with traffic and concerns about the safety of pedestrians.
Haley said the major decline he’s witnessed on that street since he opened the building on Summit 35 years ago has been amazing.
“I have sympathy for the homeless,” Haley told the Rhino Times last August, but he added that the city’s way of addressing the situation hadn’t been effective.
He said the problem was bringing down property values on his building and other property on Summit as well as in other parts of downtown.
Haley added that Greensboro was in danger of going the way of Asheville, which has become a magnet for the homeless across the state.
He also said one simple way for the city to begin addressing the issue of homelessness would be to start enforcing the laws on the books.
The count this coming week won’t solve the problem, but it should give area officials a better idea of what they are up against.
Greensboro has surpassed Asheville. This Point in Time is just another exercise to get more govt tax dollars that will be wasted by city council and county reps. Same old story we hear year in and year out. Invites are extended and they keep coming. Let the whinning begin.
Greensboro is a prime spot for the homeless because we offer so many freebies…we have homeless begging on every corner in town (without a so called permit), hanging on every street corner in downtown and often preventing people from entering business to eat or shop, sleeping in vacant businesses, etc. As long as Greensboro continues to provide all these services to them, they will come from around the state and other states…simple as that and yet our city officials continue to make it a “homeless welcoming city…this is another example of the insane leading the asylum!!
Dear still fed up, Greensboro doesn’t have a homeless problem- its an affidavit housing problem. if Greensboro offers so many perks for the homeless that they are “attracting” the homeless, have you ever wondered WHY they are standing on street corners or WHO they really are?? Many people on street corners are housed but simply need $$ for food and medicine. Maybe you could get involved with people who work everyday but cannot afford housing AT ALL and don’t beg for help. What do the Low-income, the elderly and young families do when they are being evicted by landlords who know that when housing is scarce, they can evict the tenant paying $450 rent and charge the next tenant $1250 monthly? Proverbs 28:27: “Whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to poverty will be cursed.”
Correction on this post – it should not read “affidavit “ housing- it is a need for AFFORDABLE HOUSING
You really have no idea as to what you’re talking about
If the US Department of Housing and Urban Development mandates a count of the homeless so that local governments receive federal funds, the question is why? This is a state and local issue not the federal government. The federal government inserts itself in state and local issues tying compliance to federal dollars. The state government and the local government then decide who gets the money. If the homeless fund is based on homeless counts, then it would stand to reason the larger number of homeless would mean more money. At the same time, if the homeless numbers are growing, then the local government is doing a poor job if the goal is to reduce the number of homeless. Regardless, counting the number of homeless will not fix any problems. Data needs to be collected at the time of the count to help with reducing the number of homeless. The data information does not need to be tied to individuals. Sociology 101.
Skip is solving the problem lol. This time next year it will be more of the same. How many years has Greensboro had a homeless (i am sorry, we are to call it “Un Housed”) problem. Every year it’s the same, Mental Health issues, drug addiction problems, loitering, panhandling, breaking into vacant businesses, sleeping on City or private property leaving bodily waste, trash, etc…. and it is allowed. The County, the City, Social Services, Salvation Army, City Housing Departments need to step up and do their job. Get these folks treatment, job training, housing and whatever it takes, quit putting a dry old band aid on the problem. There are plenty of vacant homes, businesses, etc. come on elected officials if you are smart enough you figure out. Execute a plan so at this time next year you won’t be counting homeless people.