Volunteers gathered Wednesday night to conduct a point-in-time count of people without shelter in Carbon County.

Point-in-time counts provide a snapshot of people experiencing homelessness on a single night every year.The numbers are broken down into household type, individuals, families, and child-only households, homeless veterans and people who are chronically homeless.Each volunteer carried a five-page survey to collect statistical age, race and gender information on the homeless counted.Family Promise, Peaceful Knights, CareerLink, and the Carbon County Action Committee worked together locally to conduct the search.Seven volunteers gathered at 8 p.m. to scour the Lehighton borough, under the supervision of Robert Fatzinger, director of Peaceful Knights, located on First Street.Fatzinger gave volunteers gallon-sized plastic bags filled with hygiene essentials, hand warmers, socks and protein bars to give to anyone found during the count.The volunteers were broken up into teams and sent to well-known gathering spots, such as parking lots, alleyways and near the Lehigh River trestle."A lot of people tend to gravitate toward the trestle, ever since the 1920s, when it was known as 'hobo heaven' because of guys riding the rails and camping out there," Fatzinger said.He told the group not to get discouraged if they were unable to locate anyone."What is uncommon is finding anybody," he said.He told the group that a lot of the homeless population are considered couch surfers, defined by Fatzinger as anyone who spends only a few days or week on a couch or floor before moving on to another location."A lot of our homeless in our area are people with disabilities and unable to work," he said.He told the volunteers to look for cars that were running, packed full of junk, or parked in places a car wouldn't normally be found. "They tend to want to be close to town where they can get warm or panhandle or get a hot coffee."Fatzinger said last year a 23-year-old woman was counted in the cemetery."Last year there were only two of us who worked the count," he told volunteers. "Homelessness is a big problem in this area. We've had 14 calls in January alone."The information collected will be included in the country's Housing and Urban Development's Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress in hopes of getting funding from the government for an emergency shelter."Carbon County doesn't have an emergency shelter or a women's shelter. We are hoping if we can get some hard data we can prove there's a problem and can get some funding."Volunteer Amanda Schleicher said she became involved in the count after seeing the event in the paper."I know some people who are in that predicament and wanted to help out," she said.At the 10 p.m. deadline the group returned to Peaceful Knights with only one man counted, but plenty of leads.Carbon area food pantries stayed open later than usual during the count to help draw any homeless in from the cold to be counted.Volunteers planned to look this morning and afternoon to follow up on leads."It's about timing, this time of night guys are already bedded down or hopefully under a roof," Fatzinger said.The official numbers will not be released until Feb. 11, when all survey information will be collected and sent to the state."We are always looking for volunteers to help out," Fatzinger said. "We're eventually going to get a handle on this," he said.Next year's count will take place the last Wednesday in January.For information on how to volunteer or to get help, contact Family Promise 610-379-4757 or Peaceful Knights 610-340-4786.