Published February 09. 2015 04:00PM
At least 33 people in Schuylkill County, including five in Tamaqua, have no place to call home in this bitterly cold weather.
That's according to the Jan. 29 count performed by Schuylkill County human services agencies.That one-day tally, called a point-in-time count, will be used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help determine the number and amount of federal grants the county gets to help its homeless.Schuylkill officials are still waiting on numbers from at least one counting place."These numbers go in on Feb. 11 to the people who are coordinating Pennsylvania's count. They put the numbers together for the counties, and then submit them to the federal program," said Keith Semerod, deputy county administrator for mental health.One bit of heartening news came from Schuylkill's tally of the homeless."I don't believe there any children. They are all adults," Semerod said.He and others involved in the annual count believe this year's may be the most accurate.Last year, and in 2013, the agencies sent out teams to try to find homeless folks.They searched in abandoned buildings and other makeshift shelters. But they believe that wasn't very effective at finding an accurate number.This year, the agencies relied more on spreading the word of the count through word of mouth among homeless peoples' networks.They also set up places such as the Salvation Army in Tamaqua where the homeless were encouraged to come in for a free meal as they were counted.