At a press conference today at the Deschutes County building in Bend, organizers from the Homeless Leadership Coalition announced the results of the annual homeless count, which took place on January 27.
In all, the coalition — made up by a number of regional agencies and volunteers — counted 2,271 individuals in Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties who identified themselves as homeless. That number is similar to 2010, but the surprisingly statistic that came out of the count was the uptick in the percentage of that number that are children.
More than half of those counted were under the age of 18.
Another group that saw its numbers rise were veterans. Chuck Hemingway of Central Oregon Veteran’s Outreach said that 105 veterans were counted in the tri-county area.
The comprehensive statistics will be released on the website of the Homeless Leadership Coalition on Friday.
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2011.
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Homeless veterans are a tragedy. They served the country and deserve better.
On the other hand, I am sick of being harassed by homeless young people daily in the downtown area. Every day they are crowding into storefronts and shamelessly asking for a handout as if it were a joke. I’m sorry…but if you are smoking, texting, and sipping from a Starbucks cup while asking for change then you don’t need help from me!
I’d like to be able to do my business without a pack of “kids” cursing, smoking, yelling, spitting on the sidewalk, and bumming money every half a block. They have no concern or respect for shop owners or patrons, but they (and the more bleeding hearted)expect everyone to accept there oafish behavior and feel badly.
Get them off the street and doing community service to earn a wage or a place to stay and meals.
Scott, just wondering do you know the background of those kids, how were you raised, if your doing business in downtown then you proly arnt that bad off, why dont you go out and offer them something better eh? You dont know the circumstances that brought them to where they are, or how they were raised, do unto others.
“My business” downtown doesn’t mean I own one. I am referring to my personal business. And I am not rich by any mean or even “well off”. I got laid off, then the company went broke and dissolved, and I was left with meager unemployment and tons of bills. Did I go make a sign and ask for a handout to buy my smokes, drugs, or booze? No…I busted my backside and when to school all over again.
These kids are decades younger than I am. They could be working to improve themselves rather than bumming.They could be hunting for every resource available to get help to go to school or find a place to live. Hard to do that when you are sitting on your butt on Wall St. holding up a sign.
You let these youngsters just give up and do nothing as you feed their bad habits with spare change and you aren’t helping them at all. You just enable them to keep living as they do.
If they are going to beg downtown and harass folks, then let “Bum” and “Mooch” be professional job titles and make them get a business license to panhandle. Put some tax on that free money to help the system they chip away at.