November 2020

WRITER:
Lauren B. Johnson

On a cold morning last January, volunteers canvassed Lowcountry streets, polling the men, women, and youth living in tent cities, abandoned buildings, vehicles, and emergency shelters: “Where did you sleep last night?” “How old are you?” “What led to you being homeless?” As the teams gathered information, they handed out care kits stocked with hygiene items, hats, socks, and gloves—a warm incentive to answer questions in a month when nighttime temperatures drop to freezing. Their mission? The annual point-in-time count, a nationwide physical head count of people without a habitable place to live. This data helps government and aid organizations such as One80 Place understand the breadth of homelessness within a community.

“Last year in the Lowcountry, there were about 400 individuals living on the streets, including veterans and families,” says Katie Smith, One80 Place’s director of annual giving. “Homelessness doesn’t discriminate—it can happen to anybody in the blink of an eye.” She cites a lack of affordable housing and low wages as two of the biggest reasons people experience homelessness. “Charleston is up there with larger cities in terms of housing expenses, but our minimum wage doesn’t reflect that cost of living.”