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Here’s poetic timing for you: the next nationwide Point in Time (PIT) count of homeless people is scheduled for Wednesday, following on the heels of local forecasts of ice and snow, abundant advice on stocking up with food, water and batteries, and schadenfreude-laden commiseration from the lucky few for those who haven’t already installed back-up generators. But really, the only thing we know for sure is that it’s going to be cold. Really, really cold.
Most of us will get along just fine. The notable exception will be people who no longer have a home and make do by staying at homeless shelters or by sleeping in their cars, tents or church vestibules. The PIT count is an annual attempt to take a snapshot of just how many such people there are, but the irony is that the worse the weather when the census is taken, the less reliable its results: those without access to a homeless shelter burrow deeper into whatever hole they find, prevail on friends or acquaintances to let them couch-surf, or scrape together enough money for a short motel stay. Not only are the homeless harder to find when the weather is most extreme, but it’s only human nature in the face of such adversity for the census takers to be less diligent than they might otherwise be.
So we’ll get some numbers, of questionable usefulness—eventually. The unfortunate reality is that while a “snapshot” connotes immediacy, these annual exercises are taking ever longer to collate. The National Alliance to End Homelessness, for example, which you might expect to be as up to date as anyone, has a dashboard that ostensibly serves up 2025 homelessness data but the numbers it reports are from the 2024 PIT count. That means the statistics are two years old and increasingly irrelevant. Mary Frances Kenion, Chief Equity Officer for the alliance, says this is because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has not released last year’s data, which sounds par for the course these days but probably should be spelled out on the alliance website.
Locally, here’s what we can expect next week: that the PIT census will find 80 to 90 people staying at the Valley Mission, another 30 to 40 in a WARM overnight shelter (more on that in a minute) and up to a dozen others in emergency accommodations, including the New Directions Center for survivors of domestic violence and motel rooms paid for by social service agencies. Only an additional score or so will be identified in the usual gathering spots. including several tent encampments in Staunton and Waynesboro, as well as the parking lots of Sheetz, Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Martin’s, Lowe’s and similar commercial outlets.
All told, the final count for the SAW area of Staunton, Augusta County and Waynesboro will come in between 140 and 160, and to the extent that anyone makes an effort to publicize this finding, much will be made of what a high percentage of that number were sheltered for the night. The implication will be that the circumstances aren’t too dire, even though the actual number of unsheltered people most assuredly will be higher than reported—perhaps much higher. WARM executive director Alec Gunn, for example, as close to local homelessness reality as anyone, contends that “there’s easily at least a hundred” unsheltered people in the SAW region.
A misleadingly low count next week will, however, dull any sense of urgency to do something about a problem still firmly on the backburner of civic or social concern. Last year’s bitter January weather prompted some hesitant steps toward creating a day shelter, as a suitable alternative for people otherwise forced to find refuge in the library, YMCA, fast-food restaurants and other public spaces. Alec Gunn ostensibly was point-man on that effort, but says it went nowhere because the Staunton city council wouldn’t offer more than a year’s funding—and a miserly amount at that, of just $30,000—and he didn’t want to start something that would have to shut down a year later. Moreover, he added, the day center’s proposed site, the First Presbyterian Church, turned out to be inappropriate for a low-barrier facility because its premises are used for two children’s schools.
So. No day shelter. But also fragile provision of an emergency night shelter, since the roster of churches willing to work with WARM to provide week-long accommodations is noticeably shorter than last year. The season began with two unclaimed slots for host churches, forcing at least one to extend its commitment by a week, and even today the schedule has multiple openings for overflow sites, which are needed when the primary host has insufficient room to meet demand, usually around 30 people. And this next week, when the weather will be at its most unforgiving, the host church will be not in Staunton or Fishersville or Waynesboro, as is the norm, but in Mt. Sidney, creating additional transportation headaches. Nor is there an overflow site on next week’s schedule.
Bottom line: be appropriately grateful if you have a warm, weather-tight and amply stocked refuge in which to ride out the storm, and even more so if you don’t get pushed into the cold to fend for yourself for 10 hours until you can return. But remember also that there are dozens among us who don’t have those bare necessities, after yet another year of handwringing but not a bit of increased help—if you’re on the street, all you’ve received is blah, blah, blah. Thin gruel indeed.
Jan. 23 postscript: According to a note from a WARM board member, the sheltered count now approaches 50. First Baptist Waynesboro, the host church this week, has been staying open some days, depending on the weather, but thus far there’s no word on whether Salem Lutheran in Mt. Sidney will follow suit next week.
Looking askance 