Volunteers find more homeless in Summit

If you really care about people, you must read the story by Beacon Journal reporter Jim Carney and view the Beacon Journal video on the hunt for the homeless by census takers.  Click on the headline. 

Homelessness is not a choice.  Keith Stahl,  director of residential services for Community Support Services who was involved in his 10th homeless count, can tell you much about that...

''Logical choices do not include being homeless on the street when it is below freezing. . .   It's circumstances in life, for whatever reason, whether they have mental illnesses, alcoholism, a veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, something has caused their thinking to be distorted to the point where they accept this as normal.'' Stahl said.

The census, conducted by about 100 volunteers, occurred all day Tuesday and aims to quantify how many people live in shelters or on the streets so that Summit County gets its share of federal funds to serve the homeless population. About $3.3 million in federal funds comes into the county each year for homeless services.

Susan R. Pierson, vice president of services for InfoLine and chair of the Continuum of Care for the Homeless, said that unofficially about 214 people were discovered to be living outdoors — in tents, under tarps at camps, under bridges, in doorways or inside abandoned buildings and vehicles. Last year's figure was 163.

The counters Tuesday night, she said, found people ''deep, deep, deep into the woods.''

In addition to the numbers gathered Tuesday, Pierson said, there are about 900 beds available in the community at shelters for homeless people.

After four hours of searching the near-downtown area, Stahl and his group found more than 30 tents. Most were empty. They talked to 10 people.

The group found evidence of people living under the All-America Bridge: three bedrolls laid out and blankets used to block the wind. A box of granola bars was left inside an abandoned rail car on track over the Little Cuyahoga River near Eastwood Avenue.

At one spot near Akron's Grace Park, the group found 15 to 20 tents and talked to six or seven people.

Stahl said the homeless camps are so secluded, they are difficult to find..

Going out in the dark and cold at night and meeting homeless people, he said, shows ''the human side of it. They aren't just some person you drive by, but when you talk to them you start to understand they are just a person.''

The homeless, he said, ''are just people. You wonder what happened in their lives.''