Oregon Public Broadcasting

Central Oregon volunteers are tallying the forms submitted during Thursday’s one-night homeless count.

Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

Homeless advocates across the country use one-night counts to get hard numbers.

Volunteers at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Bend served food as they counted.

Hundreds more fanned out to Redmond, Prineville, and the surrounding areas.

Tammy Baney is a Deschutes County Commissioner.

Tammy Baney: “Without appropriate counts of what the need actually is, we won’t know what type of a continuum that we need.”

In previous years, more than 2000 homeless have been counted.

Tammy Baney: “Some have said, oh back in the 80s was bad, well, I don’t know, I beg to differ. I think the drop off is much greater this time.”

Central Oregon is unique because many of the homeless live in camping villages on national forest land.

During this year’s count, volunteers found 22 homeless camps near the city of Bend.