Today and tomorrow, hundreds of volunteers will attempt to count the state’s homeless population. It’s part of a federal government mandate that every state count its homeless each year. Cathy ten Broeke with the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness says the purpose is “to really try to understand as best we can the numbers of people experiencing homelessness in the community and what some of the trend lines are that we really need to be sure that we’re watching and addressing.” ten Broeke says the count is essentially a minimum count of everyone experiencing homelessness in the state and adds “it is very, very difficult to ensure that every single person who is experiencing homelessness is counted, you know it looks very different in different parts of the state, for example, in Greater Minnesota, it’s much harder to track down people who may be unsheltered because they’re very, very spread out.” Here is more with
Cathy ten Broeke: