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Each January, the Coalition for the Homeless conducts a Street Count to verify the number of people sleeping outdoors in our city. We rely heavily on volunteers for this effort; the more we have, the more areas we can cover, and the greater our chances are of getting an accurate count.
The 2019 Street Count has been scheduled for Thursday, January 31, from 4-6am (meeting at Hotel Louisville at 3:45am and coming back afterwards for a warm breakfast) and the mandatory training session is the day prior, Wednesday, January 30, from 6-7pm (also at Hotel Louisville).
Please sign up to volunteer below. We will email you in mid-January to confirm details.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I can’t come to the mandatory training session. Can I make it up in some other way? Can I get the information from a friend?
A: Unfortunately, if you cannot make the training session, you cannot come to the Street Count. During the training, teams and areas will be assigned, and there will be other critical information and materials provided. (By the way, you will break up into teams of four during the training session, so we encourage you recruit a few friends to join you!)
Please note: if you’re new and want more information to help you prepare, you can see the presentation for the 2017 training session here: Street Count Volunteer Training DRAFT 2017. (Please note that there will be updates for the 2019 training presentation, and there is far more information covered in the training session than is represented here.)
Q: What will you do when you know the total number of people sleeping on the streets?
An accurate count is important because it helps our community plan how to best dedicate our resources to the most vulnerable Louisvillians. In 2019, we are working on ending homelessness among young adults—while keeping an eye on our street homelessness population, which is unfortunately growing. The Street Count is a key part of making sure we’re reaching the right people.
Q: Why do you go out from 4-6am during the winter?
People often wonder why we go out so early. The answer is that it’s the best way we’ve found to get an accurate count of people who sleep outside. People who sleep in camps often leave to walk around during the day and visit day shelters or other spots, so it would be hard to count everyone accurately otherwise. The logic for doing the count in January is that people who have other options do not sleep outdoors when the weather is extreme, and therefore we get the most accurate count of the most vulnerable people.