BY DANIEL MCGLYNN //

There’s no way to count all of the homeless people in a county the size of Rhode Island in a single morning. But the trained volunteers for the Homeless Count 2009 will try.

Fanning out across Contra Costa County during the early morning of January 28, the volunteers will document people living in the street and staying in homeless shelters. While not a full census of homelessness, “we look at it as a snapshot,” said Cynthia Belon, the director of the Homeless Program, and the information is important in understanding how bad the problem is, and how well aid programs are working. The count also meets a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requirement that helps the county qualify for federal homeless funds. Using the $7 million in HUD funds as well as money from state, county and local non-profit sources, the Contra Costa Health Services Department started a ten-year plan to end homelessness in 2004. The volunteers helping in this year’s homeless count will provide data for that program. “Overall that’s what is important about the count,” Belon said. “It helps us to show if we are ending homelessness in our community.”

Contra Costa County has more than one million residents, and a count in 2005 estimated 15,000 homeless. Previous homeless counts in 2005 and 2007 showed a decline in the number of homeless defined as “chronically homeless,” meaning they have reoccurring episodes of living on the street.  The county’s 10-year plan also targets people who may be homeless for the first time: people in transition – from jail, the foster care system, or other social services – and families. Between 2005 and 2007 there was about a 16 percent rise in the population of homeless living on the street, but there was a 40 percent decline in the number of homeless living in shelters or transitional housing.  El Cerrito, for example, had 139 people living on the street in 2005, and 117 in 2007.

Belon said that families will be of particular interest in the 2009 count because the downturn in the economy may have led to an increase in their numbers.

The goal of the County Health Service’s 10-year plan is to create more housing opportunities, Belon said. “Clearly we don’t have enough resources to deal with homelessness,” she said. Another key element of the plan is to get all of the individual cities working together and pooling resources to target homelessness.

To volunteer for the Homeless Count 2009, contact Rachel Goldman at 510-282-7840 or racheal@homebaseccc.org before January 20.  Volunteers need to go through an hour-long training session, which are scheduled the week prior to the Count.  Volunteers will spread out in pairs across the county and go to specific areas to count people living on the streets and will be expected not to “talk or engage with the homeless,” said Belon, only to report their findings.

The Pittsburg Health Center will be offering free breast exams to uninsured women today from 5 to 7 p.m.  The event is a part of a larger initiative by the Contra Costa Health Services department for National Breast Cancer Awareness month.

According to the CCHS website, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women.  The National Cancer Institute also states it is the leading cancer among Asian and Pacific Islander women.  Nearly a quarter of the population of El Cerrito is Asian or Pacific Islander.

While some staff members who work at the event are paid, many doctors, nurses and community organizers volunteer their time in an effort to reach out to the community.  At each event, uninsured women are offered a breast screening.   Beverly Frazier, the charge nurse at the Pittsburg Health Center, said further steps can be taken if necessary.

“If there’s any additional like mammograms or ultrasounds that need to be done based on that free exam, that will be arranged for them,” said Frazier.

Oncology clinical nurse specialist Marianne Bunce-Houston has been helping to organize the event for the last four years.  She said the exams have had great success in early detection.

“We always catch people who have breast cancer and they wouldn’t have known otherwise,” she said.

Every year, the county health services deliberately target uninsured women.

“Sometimes people are lost, they lost their job and their insurance and they don’t know what to do,” said Bunce-Houston.

Financial counselors are on hand to talk to women and see if they qualify for a free insurance program like Medi-Cal. Bilingual services will also be offered, and Frazier said that the majority of patients who attend the free screenings are Hispanic.

In addition to the exams, the Pittsburg center offers free expanded gynecological and breast health services for women with developmental and physical disabilities.

The Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in Martinez held the first free breast exam even last Wednesday.  Sue Dickerson, a chemotherapy nurse who has participated in these events for the last ten years, said they had an unusually low turnout this year.  Only ten women showed up, compared to the forty women who participated last year.  Dickerson hopes attendance will increase at the other locations.

Frazier said last year’s event at Pittsburg’s Health Center also had a low turnout, which she said might have been a result of having the free clinic in an upstairs section of the health center. This year, the event will be held at the Women’s Health Clinic, which is on the first floor of the East side of the building.

“We’ve been kind of trying to saturate and put out a lot of flyers,” Frazier said. “We’ve had really good turnouts (in the past), so I’m hoping that we have a really good turnout this year.”

Some people leaving the Pittsburg Health Center today were unaware of the free exams, but said they were in favor of them.

“I have free services through the clinic,” said Linda Scott. “That’s a good program, I think, for people who can’t even get this.”

“I think that it’s really good to offer the exam for people that don’t have health insurance,” said Brandi Archamede, “because somebody who might have breast cancer and not know it, it could possibly prolong them not taking care of their health.”

The next free breast exam event is scheduled for Oct. 28 at the Richmond Health Center from 5 to 7p.m.

For more information visit:
www.cchealth.org/services/womens_health/