Measuring homelessness in a community can be a challenge for many reasons but the Point-in-Time (PIT) Report captures a glimpse of the numbers collected in counties across Nevada on a specific day each year and is published after the numbers are put together.
The official 2023 PIT count was conducted on the night of Jan. 26 2023 and counted sheltered homelessness (“people residing in emergency shelter and transitional housing programs on the night of the count), unsheltered homelessness (“people whose primary nighttime residence (i.e., where they sleep) is not a place designed for or ordinarily used for sleeping), a motel count, including those individuals and families living in motels at risk for homelessness, and a count of school children without permanent or stable housing on the night of the count.
In total, Nevada was reported to have 410 total individuals experiencing some form of homelessness. The majority of those counted, 314, were experiencing unsheltered homelessness, 96 were experiencing sheltered homelessness, and 1, 151 children were reported to have inadequate access to permanent or stable housing across the state.
Rural counties in Nevada often experience unique and compounding issues when it comes to homelessness and how to address it, including Humboldt, Pershing and Lander counties.
Frontier Community action Agency Program Director/Co-Director, responsible for collecting PIT count data for Humboldt, Lander and Pershing County, Alaine Nye explained during a phone call that the numbers for all three counties should of been higher but understaffing, time constraints, lack of comfortability amongst staff and the strict guidelines for collecting the numbers kept staff from reaching certain people that would also fall within the criteria for the count.
Nye said that there are many people experiencing unsheltered homelessness on properties with no utilities, i.e. sheds and trailers, in very remote rural areas that staff were not able to contact or did not feel comfortable making contact with solo.
The data was also reflective of the affluence of each community according to Nye, with Lander being the most affluent out of the three communities, Pershing being the least affluent, and Humboldt “falling somewhere in the middle.”
Pershing County
Pershing County, with a population of 7,344 recorded in 2022, did not report any people experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness (zero emergency shelter or transitional housing providers were counted and the unsheltered count was not conducted), but had nine people living in motel/hotels, and 60 children reported to have been experiencing housing instability.
Pershing saw a rise in unemployment of 2.1 percent in the past year with a rate of 3.1 percent reported in 2022 and a rate of 5.2 percent in 2023.
Of the 60 children experiencing housing instability in the community, 22 were reported to be living in a shelter, in transitional housing or foster care, five were living in a motel/hotel, and 33 were living with other families or individuals. This number was 20 below Pershing’s record high of children experiencing housing instability in 2016 which recorded 80 total.
Lander County
Lander County, with a population of 6,158 recorded in 2022, did not report any people experiencing sheltered homelessness (zero emergency shelter or transitional housing providers were counted in Lander County), two experiencing unsheltered homelessness, zero living in a motel/hotel, and 29 children experiencing housing instability.
Lander saw a small raise in unemployment rates as well, with a rate of 3.1 percent recorded in 2022 and 3.8 percent reported for 2023.
Of the 29 children experiencing housing instability, a record high for Lander County in the last decade, all were reported to be living with other families or individuals.
Challenges in addressing homelessness
Transportation, isolation, lack of services, and lack of affordable housing are all major problems affecting how rural counties address homelessness.
Transportation across large distances, like Humboldt County’s 10,000 square miles, combined with a lack of public transportation often compounds with the isolation of vast expansiveness and can cut people off from the few services that are offered to the homeless population.
These issues combined with the overall lack of housing and affordable housing available to Nevadans adds to the complexities of possible solutions to homelessness.
Humboldt County
Humboldt County, with a population of 17,921 recorded in 2022, reported four individuals experiencing sheltered homelessness, nine experiencing unsheltered homelessness, 36 people living in motels, and 93 children with inadequate access to housing for 2023.
Unemployment rates were collected in the PIT in order to put together a full view of homelessness and Humboldt County saw a rise in homelessness of 1.6 percent with a rate of 2.6 percent in 2022 and a rate of 4.2 percent reported for 2023.
For the 93 children experiencing housing instability, 12 were reported to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness, two experiencing sheltered homelessness, 16 living in a hotel/motel, and 63 living with other families or individuals. This number is amongst some of the higher counts done in the past 10 years with the number of children experiencing housing instability in Humboldt County peaking in 2022 at 122 total.