Forty people were crammed into the Arcata House Partnership’s annex before the sun’s first light. A mulleted 20-something navigated around a few others in the kitchen, whipping up mounds of eggs. A sign on the wall read:

“Age with mischief, audacity, and a good story to tell.”

A few people chatted about how glad they were it wasn’t raining this morning like it did the last time. Everyone seemed to know someone else there. The conversation was light, but all of these people were there for an important task.

The Arcata House Partnership’s (AHP) executive director, Darlene Spoor, stepped in front of the group and spoke. We’re there this early, she said, to avoid scaring people. It’ll also make them easier to find. She had asked the Arcata Police Department not to ticket anyone for vagrancy until noon.

All around the county that day, Jan. 23, another 60 people were preparing to do the same thing we were doing: go and get a headcount of all the homeless people we see. The Point-In-Time Count is important to AHP, because it determines where the federal government allocates funding. The more homeless people an organization serves, the more funding it receives. The survey is nationwide. Volunteers count unsheltered people every other year and people living in shelters annually during the last week of January.

AHP’s procedure this year was a little different. Previously, volunteers also asked the homeless people they encountered questions some of them considered too invasive to answer, like where they slept last night, questions about their gender identity, if they did drugs or struggled with their mental health. Volunteers were directed to not ask those questions this year. “We have to be kind out there,” Spoor reminded us. “We wanted to be a little kinder, a little gentler this year.”

“It’s not getting better,” Spoor went on, referring to the increasing number of homeless people on the street. “…The need continues. More people are living on the edge. More people can’t afford groceries or rent.”

Volunteers passed out maps showing which areas each small group of volunteers was to cover, as well as goody bags with toiletries and food. My group was assigned to cover the Arcata Marsh, and we assumed we would find quite a few people there. 

The other two people on my team both declined to share their identities. Both had volunteered for the PIT count several times before, because, they said, it was simply the right thing to do. 

We stepped outside. There was now a little light in the sky. We went to the marsh and started walking around, slipping down wet deer trails and finding…no one. There were no unhoused people in the entire marsh. We searched for about an hour, combing along every trail, poking around every bush. We found a few paths leading to small clearings and a couple piles of clothing and junk, but there were no people. We asked people out on a walk if they’d seen anyone; all of them said they hadn’t. One guy said he used to see a homeless man on the same bench every morning on his walk, but hadn’t seen him for several months. 

Everyone was surprised. On South G Street, we found a pickup truck with a camper hooked up to a propane tank on the ground. Vehicles that look like someone’s living in them count for the survey, so we logged that one. We continued our search, but there were no other cars on the street. 

Eventually, we found one man who said he was homeless and we talked to him about him and his situation. The specifics are confidential, but he said he was making do as best he could. 

We finished talking after a few minutes. “It’s almost February!” he said, walking away. “Only two more months ‘til spring!”

We returned to the AHP annex. Spoor said a few other groups had returned and said that they also only saw one or two unhoused people. She was scared her funding could get slashed. 

“It will kill us,” she said. “I don’t know what other word to use.”

Preliminary data from Humboldt County’s Department of Health and Human Services suggests that there are 1,011 unhoused, unsheltered people countywide including people living in shelters, although that could rise or fall a little bit as more data is calculated. [CORRECTION: DHHS reached out to clarify that the 1,011 figure only included unhoused people living outside of shelters.]

The last PIT count two years ago counted 1,573 unhoused people countywide, including those living in shelters. During a follow-up phone call with her this week, she said that most of the volunteers had come back and shared they’d only seen a few homeless people, though there were a couple groups that counted around 20. She said she’d never seen a count before that had returned so few results.

Spoor was less nervous than she had been last week, a little more fatalistic after considering how the whims of the Trump administration had played with AHP’s funding just a few months ago. She couldn’t guess at how the low numbers would affect AHP’s funding. Spoor didn’t think the numbers were accurate; AHP serves more people than they counted, Spoor said. Increasingly, many of the people they serve are elderly people and parents with children. It angered Spoor when an 82-year-old woman had to ask for AHP’s help recently; she had never been homeless before and couldn’t afford to keep up with her rent. 

“We have to keep the faith,” Spoor told the Outpost last week. No matter the funding situation, “We’ll provide the best service we can and serve the community the best way we can. I’ve been here since 1991; we’ll still be here.”