This week, the Southwest Florida Regional Coalition to End Homelessness is canvassing Lee County for the annual Point-in-Time (PIT) Count.
Workers and volunteers are trying to determine how many people are homeless in the county.
Amerie Arnold is among those taking part in the count. For her, the work is personal.
“Going through everything that I've been through, it gives me a different outlook on life,” Arnold told NBC2.
When she was a kid, Arnold’s family moved to Florida. At one point, they had to live out of their car.
Now, as the youth outreach coordinator for the coalition, she’s helping people who are going through what she once did.
“I have a respect for them; they're still going, they're still fighting,” she said. “They're not just pieces of trash, and people need to realize that."
When Arnold and the coalition meet people who are homeless, they will gather information about them through a survey. They will often also share water, blankets and a booklet that has information about resources.
While they do encounter people who are chronically homeless, the new reality is that most people they come across are not.
"What we're seeing is a lot more newly homeless,” Michael Overway told NBC2. “Individuals who have never experienced this before."
Overway is the executive director of the coalition. In recent years, they’ve seen more seniors and single parents experiencing homelessness. That’s a big reason why the number of people they’ve counted has continued to go up each year.
Overway isn’t optimistic about the results this year, either.
“We really think our numbers are going to show a definite increase, again, over last year,” he said.
Overway said there are many groups and agencies doing good work to try to reverse that trend but explained that access to affordable, sustainable housing remains a major challenge.
“We have a lot of great support, I think. We just have to figure out how to get it done and reverse that inflow and outflow that we currently have,” Overway said. “Our inflow is overwhelming our outflow today for housing placement."
This Saturday, the Homeless Service Day & Veteran Stand Down is being held at the Next Level Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fort Myers. A variety of services will be offered to people experiencing homelessness. It starts at 8:45 a.m.
The coalition will do their count in Collier County next week.