During the last 10 days of January, volunteers and staff of the York County Coalition on Homelessness fanned out throughout the county to perform the group’s annual census of the homeless.
It’s called the “Point-in-Time Count,” a snapshot of the state of homelessness in the county, a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, used to determine federal funding for emergency homeless assistance.
The York County count revealed that over the past year, homelessness increased by 17 percent, the second-highest count in the last 10 years, according to Kelly Blechertas, the coalition’s program coordinator. The national census reported an 18 percent increase in homelessness…