Thursday morning (January 27) the Lakewood Area Shelter Association was involved in the Pierce County Homeless survey. This is an annual event conducted by volunteers and human service agencies throughout Pierce County. Volunteers walk through local parks, food banks, soup kitchens and other to survey individuals and families as to where they spent the night. The purpose of the survey is to help understand who is experiencing homelessness and why and if the numbers are stable, increasing or decreasing.
For the last several year volunteers from LASA have focused on surveying guests of hotels along Pacific Highway in Lakewood. This year we had help from Community Service Officers and two outstanding City of Lakewood employees. I would like to bring their names to your attention. They are:
- Gail Connelly, CSO
- Mike Miller, CSO
- Dawn McGinnis, CSO
- Kim Dodds City of Lakewood
- Mary Dodsworth City of Lakewood
The individuals mentioned above together with the staff and volunteers from LASA conducted the survey. We covered 10 hotels knocking on doors and meeting singles and families “living in hotels”.
We were able to provide them with goodie bags and books for their children. We surveyed 145 people! This is double the number of people we normally count and we couldn’t have done it without such a fine team and we want to thank them for their support.
The next step is for LASA to provide the information to Pierce County where it will be compiled along with the surveys from other agencies and three months from now we will get a peak at the statistics to see how the face of homelessness in Pierce County is changing.
Sincerely the LASA team
Janne /Debbie J/Olga/Paula/Michelle/Steve/Betty/Debbie M.