Community Corner

Lake Elsinore Homeless Numbers Continue To Climb

While homeless numbers are still high in Lake Elsinore and Wildomar, the two communities are trending better than the neighboring cities of Murrieta and Temecula.

The number of people living on the streets in Lake Elsinore has shot up over the last two years, but not as much as neighboring cities, according to a report released Monday,

During “point-in-time'' surveys targeting the area's homeless in January and February, the county's Department of Public Social Services counted a total of 113 people living on the streets, in abandoned buildings, beneath freeway overpasses and in transient camps. That figure compares to 68 people living under similar circumstances in 2009, DPSS officials said.

In Wildomar, the number of homeless counted by DPPS has decreased. Earlier this year the agency counted 20 people on the streets, compared to 36 in 2007.

Find out what's happening in Lake Elsinore-Wildomarwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Wildomar’s figures sharply contrast with overall county data. The number of people living on the streets in Riverside County nearly doubled in the last two years, underscoring the toll of the economic downturn on the region, according to DPSS Deputy Director Ronald Stewart.

And both Lake Elsinore and Wildomar are trending better than the neighboring cities of Murrieta and Temecula.

Find out what's happening in Lake Elsinore-Wildomarwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

According to the data, Temecula’s homeless counts skyrocketed from 69 people in 2009 to 162 in 2011. In Murrieta, the figure increased seven fold from 5 people in 2009 to 40 in 2011.

Breakout counts for unincorporated areas around Lake Elsinore and Wildomar are still pending, Stewart said. Countywide, the 2011 counts found a total 2,184 homeless in the unincorporated communities.

The 2009 figures for all the county's incorporated cities were calculated based on actual head counts. In 2011, counts were also calculated using empirical data that looked at actual head counts and “multipliers” that considered factors such as multiple people living in encampments or vehicles. As an example, for every tent/structure found in an encampment, the multiplier of 3.13 was applied to each tent/structure.  So, if 10 tents were observed then the count for that encampment would be 31 persons.

During the 2011 January and February surveys, DPSS counted a total of 6,203 people living on the streets countywide. That figure compares to 3,366 people living under similar circumstances countywide in 2009, DPSS officials said.

“Record unemployment and housing foreclosures made Riverside County one
of the hardest-hit areas in the state and nation,'' Stewart said. “This year's count clearly indicates the economic downturn has pushed more people out of their homes and has left them homeless longer.''

The survey indicated that the number of people identified as chronically homeless -- on the street for more than a year or intermittently unsheltered four or more times in three years -- had surged 168 percent.

Between 2007 and 2009, the number of homeless veterans increased slightly from 13 to 14 percent, and the number of homeless people with chronic health issues jumped from 22 to 29 percent, according to the report.

Of the 26 incorporated cities in Riverside County at the time of the surveys, Riverside had the highest number of dispossessed people --  1,430 -- figures showed.

Point-in-time surveys were instituted by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development in 2005 and are a condition of federal funding for homeless relief in localities.

According to Stewart, DPSS receives about $6.5 million in HUD funds to support homeless programs annually.

About 200 volunteers and county staff conducted the surveys, he said. --City News Service contributed to this report.


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