The Ross County Continuum of Care met, Thursday afternoon.
Over 20 people representing a number of local agencies gathered for the Ross County Continuum of Care meeting, Thursday. The Continuum meets at 2pm every fourth Thursday of each month at the City Transit building with the goal of ending homelessness.
Tabitha Muse (pictured above) said the agencies are seeing some trends: "Everyone that's out, camping outside, their trends basically stay the same; they need a tarp; they need a tent; they need a coat; they need a hat; they need gloves."
During the winter, Muse said they held a homeless count in which they asked those individuals to check in at the City Transit building, and they found 9 people living in areas that were not made for human habitation and 4 others sleeping on the benches of the law complex. The total count was over 20 homeless individuals, but that did not include those who were staying at the homes of family or friends.
"Unfortunately, HUD standards doesn't allow us to count what we call 'couch surfers,'" said Muse.
She added that they hope to hold a summer count to tally when the homeless would be more likely to camp outside.
"We want to let them know that we're here to help, that we have things for them, (and) that we're not trying to enter them into the system; we're just trying to collect numbers to bring funding to our community to help them in the long run."
