MIDDLETOWN – HONOR and several of its community partners, including police officers from the cities of Middletown, Newburgh and Port Jervis, braved the cold on Thursday for Orange County’s annual Point-In-Time Count (PIT).
A PIT is a yearly census of people experiencing homelessness in a community on a single night, usually in January, counting both sheltered (shelters, transitional housing) and unsheltered (streets, vehicles) individuals to provide crucial data for federal funding, resource allocation, and tracking progress in ending homelessness.
Trained individuals along with local law enforcement were deployed into communities across the county and provided outreach — via foot — to parks, encampments, abandoned buildings, soup kitchens, wooded areas, vehicles, and other areas in a planned outreach effort. The teams engaged with unsheltered homeless where they are likely to congregate on these single digit weather days.
Last year, the PIT revealed that 958 individuals experienced homelessness in Orange County; the majority sheltered in emergency shelters and warming stations, while 72 had remained unsheltered and living on the streets.
HONOR collaborates with Orange and Dutchess counties to combat homelessness through a program called Safe Options Support (SOS). The SOS team is in the community every day providing intensive support, access to critical, lifesaving services, including those suffering from mental illness.
Residents who see someone outside and without shelter, can call HONOR at 845.343.7115 or email [email protected].
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