Sonoma County Homeless Point in Time (PIT) Count 2024 Volunteer Registration Now Open! January 26th!

Friday, January 26th, 2024, is the Sonoma County Homeless Point-in-Time (PIT) Street Count for all populations of persons experiencing homelessness! We will have 5 regional deployment sites located in North County, West County, Sonoma Valley, Petaluma, and Santa Rosa; locations will be announced at a later date. We are seeking volunteers to help with the count this year and would love your support!

The Count is required to receive federal homeless assistance funds and provides critical data to understand homelessness locally and support strategic decisions about our programs.

Volunteers will be asked to work in teams and drive all assigned routes from approximately 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM for the greater Petaluma and Santa Rosa areas and 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM for the remainder of the County (unless otherwise notified) on the morning of January 26, 2024. Volunteers can either create teams and sign up to participate together or sign up as individuals to be paired with another team.

Registration Link: https://asr.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bpBkzY5LEl4Gjd4

General Count Information:

1. Grab your team’s email addresses (2-3 people) and have one member register your team. If you are signing up as an individual, you can be paired with a team at a later date. 
2. Register your team to volunteer below by using the registration link above. Once signed up, you will be contacted by a PIT Count administrative leader in the following week to determine which routes your team will be responsible for together. Once this is determined, this route will be yours, and you will be sent a confirmation email with a PDF map of your route areas that will enable you to practice or scout in advance of PIT count day. Large, hard-copy maps will be available to pick up on the day of the Count at each deployment center.
3. Prior to Friday, January 26^th, you’ll receive a link to download the smartphone app. Please download the survey 123 app from your phone’s app store and complete the training during the indicated timeframe. Only one person per team needs to download the app.
4. On the day of the count, your team will meet at the designated deployment site and be assigned a guide if one is available, but it is optional. Petaluma and Santa Rosa sites will deploy at 5:00 AM, and all other regions of the county will deploy at 6:00 PM.
5. Once your team is ready, you can hop in the car and drive your route during the designated 4-hour drive/walk window. There will be five deployment sites you can check in with in person if any questions arise.
6. You will use the smartphone app to do a visual tally count of those unsheltered persons you see in your designated route area. Don’t worry! You’ll get virtual training on how to download and use the app.  Training materials will be sent out to the emails we have on record.
7. Celebrate! Once you cover your entire route visually, you will check in with the administrative leader at the deployment site (if needed). The administrative leader will confirm you have uploaded your data and don’t have any questions or observations to share, and then you’re done. Thanks for participating!

Things you’ll need for the count:

1. A charged smartphone
2. A vehicle
3. The knowledge you’re doing important work!

Volunteers will be asked to work in teams and drive all assigned routes from approximately 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM on the morning of Friday, January 26th, 2023.

Again, thank you for participating in the 2024 Sonoma County Homeless Census and Point-in-Time (PIT) Count! We are committed to having a safe and successful PIT Count, and we cannot do that without you.

For technical questions, please contact alex@appliedsurveyresearch.org  or call (877) 728-4545.

Please send any other questions related to the Homeless Count to Karissa White, Continuum of Care Coordinator, at Karissa.White@sonoma-county.org  or by telephone at (707) 565-4080.