Originally posted on the SF Gate May 25, 2017
Link: http://ow.ly/5ENs30gjKhA
A census of people living on the street confirms what people in Oakland see every day: The homeless crisis there has gotten worse.
The biennial count of homelessness, released Thursday, turned up 25 percent more people without long-term shelter in Oakland than there were two years ago.
Many of the 2,761 homeless people live in the encampments that have sprung up over the past year, sprawling beneath Interstate 880 overpasses and along desolate stretches in West Oakland. Others are largely unseen, staying in transitional housing or shelters.
The survey was part of a county-wide effort in which 345 volunteers counted 5,629 sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in all of Alameda County on the morning of Jan. 30. The number reflected a 39 percent increase from 2015, when 4,040 homeless people were counted in Alameda County.
“People are living in places not meant for people to live — in cars and abandoned buildings and alleyways and parks and overpasses and camps and encampments,” said Elaine de Coligny, executive director of EveryOne Home, a nonprofit that seeks to end homelessness in Alameda County and administers the survey. “We’ve seen this as we drive around this county. We can see this problem is growing.”
