Volunteers conduct homeless count in the east valley early Tuesday morning

Volunteers were up early in the East Valley to hold their homeless point-in-time-count the survey at 5:30 Tuesday morning.

Volunteers met at Martha’s Village and Kitchen in Indio. Volunteers who have been involved with the survey for the past few years said it sheds a different light on the homeless population.

“A lot of people relate homeless to being on drugs or not caring, but sometimes its just a bad situation that snowballed into them being homeless. People need to realize that we can potentially be in that same situation,” said Cara Hander of the Department of Public Social Services.

Last year’s survey across the county showed an increase in the homeless population for the first time in six years. We’ll learn this year’s numbers and results later this spring.