LAWTON, Okla_Sixteen
counties in Southwest Oklahoma will come
together to take a survey of the homeless living in this area. On Tuesday,
volunteers, soldiers and veterans came together to prepare for next week's
survey. They mapped out how the process will work, and made sure the volunteers
who go out into the field to count know what to be prepared for.
About half the
volunteer force showed up for training, but come next Tuesday, over 300 people
will be searching Southwest Oklahoma high and
low to look for the homeless, specifically veterans. The volunteers will start
at 12:01 AM on September 11th and end at 12:01 AM September 12th and plan on
doing just about anything to help out those that are struggling to survive.
It's a sad
reality, but one that has to be faced, many people living in Southwest Oklahoma
are homeless and among those who are living in parks, bridges or alleys are
some who have served our country and fought for our freedom.
"Something
has happened in this veteran's life and this is probably just a short-time
situation and we need to be there to set them up and get them where they need
to go," local Vietnam vet Pat Power said.
Power said
being part of this campaign is something that is close to her heart. She and
about 300 other volunteers will set out next Tuesday to search for Southwest Oklahomans and vets who are homeless.
"If you
look at the overall big picture a veteran is an individual that raised his
right hand, took that extra step forward to defend the Constitution of the United States
and to serve under that flag."
"I Count"
Chairman Jervis Jackson said the volunteers will have a busy 24 hours. There
are two different types of homelessness, the homeless sheltered who are living
in group homes, shelters or motels. Then there is the homeless unsheltered who
are living on park benches, streets or bridges. Jackson said volunteers will become handy
when it comes to counting the homeless unsheltered, because unlike the homeless
sheltered that are accounted for, the unsheltered can be more difficult to
find.
"There is
the ‘known' locations, where someone has called in and said ‘well there's 2 to 3
homeless people that typically sleep on the back lot off of 11th and Lee' so we
will send volunteers out there and hopefully we will get a pretty good estimate
of how many people are experiencing homelessness in the community."
From there, the
goal is to get each and every homeless person accounted for to fill out a
survey to be officially counted, the higher the head count the more federal aid
the program will be eligible to receive.
"We're
certainly going to be just as elated we're going to be happy, we're going to
celebrate if we just find one homeless person and particularly a homeless
veteran and having identified them, we will be able to assist them."
If you were unable to attend Tuesday's meeting but would still like to be
a volunteer, you can call the homeless hotline at 595-0636, they say the more
volunteers who can come and help out the better.
