Point-in-Time count aims to provide data on people experiencing homelessness in Greater Akron

Under brooding gray skies and icy drizzle, teams of Summit County social workers were up before dawn on Tuesday, heading into some of Akron’s most remote places to count, in real time, the people experiencing homelessness and living in tents and makeshift shelters at various locations across the city. 

The workers are Community Support Services (CSS) employees trained in mental health, addiction, housing, shelter operations and veterans’ services. They arrive at the encampments bearing gifts in the form of colorful backpacks filled with support items, including toiletries, bus passes and gift cards for food.

The CSS teams visit these often temporary neighborhoods several times per week, and know their clients’ stories. As they approach the camps, the workers hail many of the homeless residents by name and know who is now housed, as well as those who are experiencing homelessness again.   

“Building a rapport is very important,” said Keith Snodgrass, a licensed CSS social worker. “A lot of times when we first see a person they’re like, ‘What do you want?’ and they think we have a hidden agenda. Being consistent is important.” 

The outreach is part of the annual HUD-mandated Point-in-Time count, which has taken place every winter in Summit County since the 1990s, Snodgrass said. The PIT count is overseen by the Summit County Continuum of Care, an umbrella organization of local agencies providing myriad services for the county’s most vulnerable populations. 

On Tuesday, Snodgrass and his colleague Mikaylla Simms, an outreach center staffer, braved the icy terrain to visit several sites for the count. Both Simms and Snodgrass are working on earning master’s degrees: Simms for counseling and Snodgrass to earn his independent social services license.

At one site, a middle-aged man said he is working with CSS to get Social Security, as he suffers from colon cancer and COPD. Snodgrass congratulated him on following through with his case-management sessions and the two shared a fist bump. 

At another site, a man said he had been homeless for more than a year because of a domestic squabble, which triggered severe PTSD. 

His female companion, helping him carry supplies to his site, said she and her young son had been homeless a year ago until the CoC connected her with Access Inc., a shelter for homeless women with children. She and her son have been housed ever since, she said.

“All of the individuals we serve have other issues they’re dealing with,” Snodgrass said. “Whether it’s severe, persistent mental illness or addiction, they need support. So our whole goal is to get them in housing with wrap-around services with that support, so we can address all their needs.”

While CSS workers visit the camps using a mobile app that enables them to record vital data, a week-long youth PIT assessment will be underway through Jan. 24, when outreach teams led by the CoC’s Youth Advisory Board will seek out unhoused young people. 

To survey the young, youth PIT workers will canvass the Summit County Metro Transit Center, Harmony House, the Akron Aids Collaborative, Shelter Care and the Freedom Bloc office, among other popular gathering places.

The work this year is aided by the highest number of volunteers the CoC has ever drawn, said Executive Director Mar-quetta Boddie.

And the need is greater than it’s ever been, she said. 

Homelessness in Summit County is a mirror of the 12% increase in homelessness across the country, Boddie said, and much of the support money of recent years has dried up.

“We had close to $45 million in funding from the Cares Act for rental assistance for two years, and then we also received COVID dollars to do some additional things like extra rapid rehousing, some labor mitigation, and other innovative and creative things that we weren’t able to do in the past,” she said. 

But the funding abruptly ended in early 2022, dropping to $7 million a year, while the cost of food, services and housing rapidly increased.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in homelessness, and we’re back to the pre-pandemic dollars,” Boddie said. “I mean, it’s a substantial change in what we’re able to do, and there’s just a huge need for more outreach workers. Once we lost all of those dollars, it has been detrimental to our system.”

CSS Residential Manager Tim Edgar describes it as “the perfect storm.”

“We had the eviction moratorium going on and then we got flooded with [CARES Act] money, which was great,” he said. “Both of those ended at the same time.”

The difference is evident in the CSS Homeless Outreach Center, which offers clients a comfortable place to take a hot shower, do laundry, receive mail and meet with case workers. 

“Our busiest day prior [to the pandemic] was about 55 people during the day,” Edgar said. “A month ago we had 50 people in here by noon.”

The CoC comprises 70 agencies and operates 33 programs for the homeless, Boddie said. Of those agencies, 13 receive a portion of the funding the CoC receives each year for homeless services for populations ranging from pregnant teens to disabled vets. 

The majority of agencies receive no funding through the CoC but they offer support, she said.  

“They’re trying to see what they can do to make an impact on this population,” Boddie said. “We are extremely appreciative.”

Much of the federal funding awarded to Summit County is based on the numbers revealed by the PIT, Boddie said, which in 2022 showed an increase of roughly 200 unsheltered residents over 2021 numbers.  

One of the top challenges the CoC faces is the lack of affordable housing.

“The waitlist for AMHA housing is over 22,000 people waiting on that list. So traditionally, it takes a minimum two years for you to even get to the top of that list, unless you have some kind of priority preference points that’ll bump you up to the top,” Boddie said. “The private housing market rates are so high right now that our programs that we currently fund, like the fair market rental amount, does not meet what the landlords are asking for in the private market.”

Summit County’s rental rates used to be reasonable compared to larger cities, but not anymore, Edgar said.

At a site with a lone shelter, Snodgrass chatted with familiarity with a friendly woman who spoke through the tent. 

After completing the survey questions, the woman shared her thoughts on homelessness, saying people need to band together to eliminate homelessness rather than just talk about politics. 

More people might become involved in working to end homelessness if they were more exposed to the reality of it, Simms said. 

“I don’t want to speak for them, but I think sometimes it’s hard because people know it’s there, but they don’t look,” she said. “I mean, whether you’re just busy with your day-to-day life, or, you know, the rent increases and inflation and everything, it affects everybody. So, everybody’s kind of struggling but, you know, at different levels.”

More support for mental-health care might also help combat homelessness, the woman in the tent said, because many unsheltered people suffer from mental illness.

 “If you don’t have it when you get out here, a lot of people within six months develop it,” she said.