On January 29th, Scotty Morton, Program Director and Case Manager, Natasha Newsom of Westcare Emergency Shelter drove in and around Pikeville, KY to attempt to count all the homeless people in the area.

Morton states they were only two of the many volunteers who participated in the 2020 K-Count, a homeless count effort to tally the number of unsheltered individuals living on the street in Pikeville, KY on a single day in January.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development requires communities to complete the count in order to receive federal funding for homeless programs. Morton says this data will help understand who’s out there and to design better services for them, to identify those people in need and to attain the resources to help them.

According to count organizers, the homeless in Pikeville may spend their nights in the woods or under a bridge by the river. Some sleep in their cars, parked in remote corners of empty lots. Often, they find shelter in public restroom facilities or hiding out in 24-hour stores. Others may break into vacant houses for some protection from the elements. This leads to the misconception that homelessness doesn’t exist in our area.

WestCare Emergency Shelter; near the old by-pass road, has opened its doors to provide a place for K-Count to find people experiencing homelessness in Pikeville.