By Kristin Mayer
Special to the Daily Press

LOS ANGELES Close to 1,500 volunteer residents and paid homeless workers will canvass the streets of Los Angles County for the third night in a row this evening as part of The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count 2007 — the largest homeless census and survey project in the United States.

Volunteers and workers meet nightly at one of 30 deployment centers and then set off in pairs on foot or by car to tally all of the homeless people staying in each of the sample areas.

Enumerators fanned out across Santa Monica Tuesday, beginning at 8 p.m., counting heads into the early morning.

“It’s really important to know where people are so we know where services need to be,” said Rebecca Isaacs, a Santa Monica resident and executive director of the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority. “This is the kind of data policymakers, homeless services providers, funders and planners need.”

While a lot of great models for affordable housing with attached services exist, people who plan communities don’t know where to build, Isaacs said. Census data should highlight the best options.

Santa Monica, along with Venice and Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, made the list of 211 homelessness “hot spots” being targeted. The census includes actual street counts of at least 500 tracts throughout the county during the three-night time span.

“This is a point-in-time count, so you have to do it all at once,” Isaacs said. “It will be partly an extrapolation, but at least you can say in this window of time this is what it looked like in Santa Monica.”

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is conducting the census with the help of hundreds of volunteers seeking answers to the homeless crisis.

The Los Angeles City Council and County Board of Supervisors proclaimed Jan. 22-27 “Homeless Count Week 2007” to draw public attention to the cause.

Volunteers, all age 18 or older, attended training sessions last week. At this point, volunteer sign-ups are closed.

Homeless workers, who also attended the training sessions, are being asked to use their knowledge and experience to help coordinators gather more complete information. They are already familiar, for instance, with where many homeless people sleep, Isaacs said.

Isaacs recalled a homeless woman who sighed in relief as she placed money in her pocket after a night collecting data in Santa Monica.

“People are just desperate for this work and really seem to appreciate it and do a good job,” Isaacs said.

Carmell Hutch Jr., who has been homeless for 28 years since hitchhiking from Tennessee, is looking for the extra boost that will get him off the streets.

“I’m still waiting for something to happen to me, like a job, making money to pay rent,” Hutch said on Wednesday, while passing time on the Third Street Promenade. “If I get me an apartment together I’d be all right.”

Hutch agreed the homeless count would provide a way to focus homeless services where they would be most effective.

“It’d be all right to figure out the places where the need is greatest,” Hutch said. “It could be something good will come out of it. I believe a good program could help people out to get them in houses and off the streets.”

Hutch said Santa Monica already does an admirable job of providing services to homeless people, noting his regular stops at the Access Center, a drop-in shelter at 1453 16th St. that serves free meals Wednesday afternoons.

More than $50,000 in federal grants filter down to Los Angeles County through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which requires the bi-annual count.

The street count data gathered this week will supplement a shelter and institution count, as well as surveys of 3,300 homeless people and telephone surveys scheduled to unfold throughout the next couple months

A July 2007 report will outline the final results.