Huron County has released the results of its Homelessness Enumeration Report.
The county's Homelessness Program Supervisor, Erin Schooley, says while the numbers reflected in the report are not as dire as some other areas, they are not trending in the right direction.
Schooley says the latest report shored that there was a 69 per cent increase in those considering themselves homeless compared to a 2018 survey.
“We had 112 people complete the survey, but we have another 57 people who were observed seeming homeless, but opted to not to participate or where people knew that they were experiencing homelessness, but we could not really get a hold of them,” said Schooley.
She believes there are two factors that contributed most to the increase.
“The number one reason for homelessness, in this area, was the breakdown of family relationships. So, consider how intense and difficult COVID has been, how could that not contribute to that. But the second reason was lack of income keeping up with the cost of rent,” explained Schooley.
Schooley says the enumeration was conducted on November 29th, 2021 and the ages of the respondents ranged from 25 to 35.
She is encouraged by the increased interest in the issue at county council and in the communities where it's happening but addressing the challenge is taking a long time.
