Local organizations worked together to conduct a “point in time count” last month to determine an estimate of how many unhoused people there are in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle.

The data collected annually on one day in January can be used to increase access to state and federal funding to better support those experiencing homelessness in the region.

“It just brings attention to the needs that we have here in this area,” said Maryanne Capp, a nurse with street medicine group Project HOPE and coordinator of the count.

This year, there were 149 unhoused individuals counted. This included five in Hancock County, seven in Brooke, 122 in Ohio, four in Marshall and 11 in Wetzel.

However, the real number of people experiencing homelessness in the area is higher, said Catholic Charities President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Philips. Catholic Charities is tasked with attaining state and federal funding for panhandle organizations helping unhoused populations.

“We know that that number is low because you can’t count everybody in that short time period, in that 24-hour time period,” Philips said. “When we’re talking about more rural homelessness it’s difficult to get a sense for where all the camps are, where people might be staying on a given night.”

People experiencing homelessness tend to concentrate around areas where there are more resources available and more community, Philips said. This is why higher populated Ohio County, and Wheeling specifically, tend to see more unhoused people.

Other towns, like Weirton and New Martinsville, yielded low counts.

Ohio County is also the only county to have a winter freeze shelter and an exempted encampment area. The bigger the city or town, the more resources like case management, hot meals and treatment services for addiction or mental health, are available.

“Part of it is simply a matter of population. Just like you would go to a larger city for different kinds of services, if you need to go to the hospital or grocery store, or whatever, people who are experiencing homelessness also go to larger cities because that’s where they can receive social services,” Philips said.

Capp said there were several changes to how the continuum conducted the count this year, like having an online sign-up sheet and assigning team leads for each county, that really helped the process go smoothly.

“It really brought a lot of people on board that were able to help and bring the count really better to fruition,” Capp said.

Several local organizations aided in the count, including Street Moms, the YWCA, Helping Heroes, Project HOPE and the Family Resource Networks of several counties, among others.

Capp said the severe winter weather set them back a bit, so the continuum will try to start the planning process even earlier for next year’s count.

“We hope we can get even better next year and really adequately represent people who are experiencing homelessness here in the northern panhandle so that we can advocate for services and advocate for change as much as possible,” Philips said.