In Clark County, it is not hard to spot a homeless person. As you get closer to Portland, in fact, they are practically everywhere. This is because the rate of those without a home has been on the rise in the past several years, and it is our duty as citizens to actively work toward a solution.
According to the Council for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing solutions to fix the homelessness problem in Clark County, homelessness has risen from a Point in Time count of 695 people (both sheltered and unsheltered) in 2014 to 958 people in 2019 (“Clark County Point in Time Count 2014-2019”). To give a better idea of this growth, from 2018 to 2019, the rate of homelessness from these Point in Time counts revealed a 21 percent increase in those experiencing homelessness. For the sake of our county, this trend cannot continue.
In order to counteract this dangerous trend, I strongly urge the people of this county to become educated on this issue and start to become more involved. Some websites you can visit to take action on the homelessness crisis are www.councilforthehomeless.org and www.sharevancouver.org.
