The annual Point In Time count — a federally required survey of homeless people sleeping unsheltered outdoors and in shelters countywide — was taken in Marion County on Wednesday, Jan. 24.
Robin Ford, a 30-plus-year Ocala Police Department veteran now serving as manager of the city of Ocala Office of Homelessness Prevention, deployed 18 people in four teams to surveypeople living unsheltered outdoors.
“We asked people where they spent the night of the 23rd of January,” Ford said.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires a PIT count to provide a guide for allotment of federal grants for Continuum of Care partners. This funding provide help to homeless people through groups like Interfaith Emergency Services, Shepherds Lighthouse and St. Theresa Catholic Church.
Final 2024 count figures are not expected to be released until March.
Teams sought homeless persons at locations including secluded encampments, near roadways, business parking lots, a transportation center, parks, the Ocala National Forest and around the Brother’s Keeper Soup Kitchen on Northwest Second Street in Ocala.