What's Happening in Norwich, CT…

Point in Time Count survey volunteer Kristen Day stated that she is grateful for having a roof over her head after searching for homeless Norwich citizens, yet the project’s results suggested that the city does not have a major homelessness issue.

The search took Day down Thermos Avenue near the railroad tracks. She and 38 other volunteers spent the night of January 26 taking an estimate of the homeless population in the town. They searched underpasses, abandoned buildings, and vacated homes. The survey tells the federal government what kind of funding Norwich can use for combating the issue. Surveyors document the gender, age, and family situation of each homeless resident.

Mike VanVlaenderen and Nancy Tucker joined Day as a three-person team that found nobody homeless in their search. However, they did find evidence of homelessness, such as mattresses and makeshift campsites.

VanVlaenderen is a Reliance House service coordinator and has been conducting the counts for nearly a quarter of a century. He believes the programs put in place give more of the homeless community a place to stay at night. Unofficially, volunteer groups found 33 people without shelter, but statistics suggest that homelessness is at its lowest rates in a decade.

Officials in Norwich who want to propose more programs to help the homeless can hire a poster printing company to interpret the data using colorful graphs and clear language.