Homeless numbers steady in Coweta County | News

“There’s a discomfort to it,” DeWees said. “I think people have thoughts about who homeless people are, and (you’re) just walking onto a person’s space and you’re not sure who they are and what they’re like.”

DeWees volunteered because he knew Pamela Gabel, chair of the Sustainable Housing Task Force, and he wanted to support the work she was doing.

But once he came into contact with the reality of homelessness it was eye opening, he said.

His team came upon two tents during their search. One, set up under a bridge, was as homey as the person living there could make it, DeWees said. The area around the tent was neat and tidy with the resident’s things organized and put up.

“It wasn’t a ramshackle place,” he said. “He’s homeless, but he’s making the best of his circumstances.”

The second tent “was more like living under a dome of tarps,” he said.

In both cases, the people didn’t come out of the tents to talk to the team members, he said.

One person he did talk to had spent the night in the open. The sleeping bag the person had slept in and all the person’s belongings had been soaked from the rain the night before.

“This was rough,” DeWees said.

The count is a national event that tries to get an estimate of the number of homeless people in each county. The Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, organizes the count, then uses the information to help shape policy and allocate resources to the counties.

“We sent out four teams of two…