Unicoi organizations finish homeless population count

ERWIN — The data is valuable, but the work itself is priceless. That's Ben Booher's evaluation of Unicoi County's Point-In-Time count. Booher, executive director of Unicoi County Care and Share Ministry, helps count the county's homeless population every year with a number of other regional organizations. The count is part of the national Point-In-Time survey, an effort to quantify the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night every year. "For us, the greatest value in doing the count is giving us a regular context to come into contact with these folks," Booher said. "We want to know people, we want to know those circumstances." This year's count, which surveyed people who were homeless on Jan. 22, counted 34 unhoused individuals, 17 unhoused households and nine unhoused minors. Overall, that's 16 fewer unhoused people than last year — but this data is always a bit flawed, Booher said. Cold temperatures and bad weather made this survey more challenging. "I do sense that our count was lower this year simply because we couldn't find them, rather than we have truly fewer homeless people," Booher said. There are many other reasons the count could have dropped, he added. For example, some people could have opened their homes to their unhoused neighbors because of the cold. A handful of people in last year's count were also displaced by Hurricane Helene. Compared to cities in the region, homelessness looks a bit different in rural areas like Unicoi. "I think we have more unhoused people than what most people would assume we have," Booher said. "A lot of it's very hidden." While there is street homelessness, he said — people living in tents or under overpasses, for example — there are a wide variety of living situations for unhoused people. Some may be transitionally homeless, camping or sleeping in cars. There are also fewer concentrated shelters in the rural region than other areas. That means people scatter, making it harder to reach them. In Erwin, the population fluctuates based on the hiking season. "We have a major rail line, a major interstate, we have the Appalachian trail," Booher said. "Sometimes (people) get stuck here, or they find this is a hospitable place for them, and so they stay here for a little while." For the groups that do the annual count, which includes lead organization Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness; multiple churches; the Unicoi County Prevention Coalition; the Change Is Possible Family Violence Shelter and others, the count is paramount to serve homeless communities and build a structure that adequately provides for them. A structured way of contacting unhoused people also provides a better assessment of the issue. In 2024, Unicoi County counted two people who were homeless. In 2025, that number skyrocketed to 50 people. "We didn't magically get 10 times the number of homeless folks here in the county," Booher said. "It's just that we were counting them better." Collecting the data is an easy way to provide someone food, resources, care and love, he added. "For a lot of people, they just don't have that in their lives, whether they're homeless or not. And so for us, it's about going that layer deeper," Booher said. "We see our service to our local unhoused population and other people who are in need as a biblical imperative."