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PARKERSBURG -- If she hadn't been walking alone at almost 9 p.m. Wednesday in stinging cold rain on the mostly industrial Keever Avenue, below 19th Street, the young woman in the camouflage jacket holding a black umbrella might not have stood out.
Earlier at Downtown Bethel Church on Market Street, an organizer told volunteers participating in the annual Wood County Point in Time Count that in addition to checking specific locations for homeless individuals to survey, they should try to speak with people they see out walking. When a group spotted the woman on Keever, they did just that.
The woman was hesitant at first, said Jessica DeLong, a housing stabilization case manager with the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
"People are often afraid of getting in trouble," DeLong said. "She definitely did not know why we were stopping to ask her."
DeLong and Maegan Gaver, a Programs Assisting Those Experiencing Homelessness (P.A.T.H.) engagement specialist for Westbrook Health Services, got out of the vehicle to ask the woman questions for the count's survey.
The woman gave her first name but not her last. She said she would be spending the night in her truck, had only arrived in the area a few days ago and would be leaving soon. DeLong and Gaver handed her a backpack that included water, meals ready to eat, a hat, gloves, scarves and a list of agencies and resources to assist the homeless.
Later, DeLong agreed the woman didn't fit the stereotype most people would have of a homeless individual.
"It's not always what you think it is," she said. "You walk by people and you don't realize they're having a hard time."
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The goal of the Point in Time Count, held Wednesday and Thursday, is to provide a snapshot of the homeless situation for the state Coalition to End Homelessness. The organization, which serves 44 counties in West Virginia, uses that data to help determine how to deploy its resources -- like rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing -- and where to place staff, as well as to apply for federal funding to assist the homeless.
This year's count found 41 people without shelter overnight Wednesday, said Tim Baer, one of the local event's organizers and a P.A.T.H. engagement specialist with Westbrook. That's up a dozen from the 2018 count.
Baer gave a portion of the credit for the higher total to having more than 80 volunteers contributing in various ways, the largest number in his 11 years doing the count. However, "I also believe homelessness is definitely on the rise," he said.
One factor appears to be people coming to the area for substance abuse treatment, Baer said. If they don't complete the program, they may have nowhere else to go, and their lack of sobriety could keep them out of area shelters.
But there's no one, common reason, Baer said.
"I still see people on a day-to-day basis that, situations happen and they're homeless," he said.
Many of the volunteers formed the 13 teams that headed out from Downtown Bethel Wednesday evening. A number returned early Thursday morning to join with others. Another team coordinated the efforts from the church, Baer said.
Teams were given specific locations to check -- 24-hour gas stations, church parking lots, cemeteries, vacant buildings, known homeless camps. They were to ask homeless individuals they encountered a series of questions, with the answers submitted to the Coalition via a smart phone app, rather than the cumbersome paper surveys used in years past.
"Laundromats are a good hangout," Baer said before the teams went out. "Dumpsters and trash compactors -- it's sad, but I find a lot of people in and around those. … If there's a cemetery in your area, check it."
Totals for people staying at area homeless shelters had not been completed as of Friday afternoon.
Gathering numbers wasn't the only goal.
"Every encounter with someone is important, especially that first encounter," Baer said. "They're going to know that someone genuinely cares about them, that they're not forgotten."
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"Tim should be a bounty hunter," joked one of the members of his team as Baer worked his way through a dark, wooded area near the railroad tracks that run behind the PM Center and Grand Central Mall in Vienna.
Baer said he'd seen tracks going into the woods and a call to another team confirmed they hadn't been there yet. However, he was unable to locate anyone.
Baer and Gaver were familiar with several areas beyond the floodwall that the average resident might not realize exist. They noted a white bucket underneath the Memorial Bridge was "new," suggesting someone had been there recently, while an overturned shopping cart not far away had sat in the same position for a while.
The four-member team approached empty trailers off of 12th Street and an abandoned powerhouse for a former electrical plant built more than a century ago along the Ohio River, announcing themselves and why they were there. They hadn't located anyone for the first two hours until they happened upon the woman on Keever Avenue.
Baer was participating in his 11th count and Gaver her second, while DeLong and Beth Little, who also works for the Coalition to End Homelessness, were joining in for the first time, though they had gone on outreach visits.
"I think that we need to know more about where the homeless people are," DeLong said.
The Wednesday evening portion of the count was slated to end at 10 p.m., with Thursday's morning's session scheduled for 4:30 to 7:30 a.m. Baer said he stayed out all night and wrapped up around 4 p.m. Thursday. There were specific areas he wanted to search and specific people he expected to find.
"I just stayed out as long as I knew that we could continue to look for people and get them counted," he said.
In the morning, some volunteers revisited areas where the evening groups came up empty. Volunteers visiting the North Parkersburg Baptist Church's Friendship Kitchen and the House to Home day shelter accounted for 16 individuals who spent the night outdoors or in structures considered uninhabitable.
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About a dozen first-time volunteers joined in the 2019 count. One of them was Parkersburg resident David Benton, who was paired with Joe Fields, director of the MOV Little Prayers homeless ministry. They visited Camden Clark Medical Center and areas under and around the bridges in downtown Parkersburg.
Benton and Fields only encountered one potentially homeless individual, and Fields said that person appeared to be under the influence of some type of drug, so they weren't able to get much information. However, they located evidence of other people staying in the areas they checked.
Benton said he found a blackened Folgers coffee can, with pieces of burnt wood inside.
"I see something like that and I think, 'That's their heat,'" he said. "I can quit and go home and get in a warm house."
Lacey Wilson has participated in the count for three years and convinced three of her co-workers at the West Virginia University at Parkersburg School of Nursing to come along this year.
They did not find anyone to survey Wednesday evening, although they discovered tracks under the Williamstown Bridge, said one of those co-workers, Amber Murray. Just learning where some people spent the night was eye-opening, she said.
"You don't realize where they are," Murray said. "It just makes you really appreciate your warm home."
Based on finding evidence of people staying in places, Baer acknowledged it's "quite possible" there were more than 41 unsheltered, homeless individuals in Wood County Wednesday night.
With the information gathered, and individuals and the places they stayed identified, Baer said Thursday on a post to the count's Facebook page that "now the real work begins" to help them.
He suggests people find out the resources and opportunities available in the area, "find the opportunity that fits you and don't feel your efforts are too little."
"Take the time for one and everyone will be reached," Baer said.