Early on January 25, 2023, volunteers gathered at stations situated in all parts of Santa Barbara County to participate in the annual Point-in-Time Count (PIT), a census of unhoused individuals that provides essential data to state and federal agencies responsible for supplying aid to address housing and public health issues. Following a rigorous training session designed to ensure that the human dignity and emotional well-being of the subjects of the study remains intact, these volunteers fanned out in small groups to visit, speak with, and document the wide range of people who sleep unsheltered or in vehicles across Santa Barbara County.
This year, the PIT was managed by the Santa Barbara Alliance for Community Transformation (SBACT), a nonprofit organization established in 2005 to “lovingly engage the marginalized while actively working for the betterment of their physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental needs.” After participating in the 2023 PIT, a representative of the Independent reached out to Landon Ranck, the operations manager at SBACT, with a few questions about the latest results.
How many volunteers participated this year? How would you describe the range of people involved in terms of age, background, level of experience with the count, and any other salient features? This year, we had nearly 400 volunteers sign up to participate in the count. About 50 percent of those were returning volunteers, and the other 50 percent were first-time participants. They ranged in age from high schoolers accompanied by an adult chaperone to retirees wanting to remain active in the community. One of the great things about this activity is we see people from every walk of life participate, including those with lived experience of homelessness. We also dispatched several specialized groups to cover those living in encampments, those experiencing homelessness in their vehicles, and unhoused youth.