Last month, more than a dozen volunteers from Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering (BES) conducted a count of homeless individuals in the city as part of the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, a federally mandated effort each year to count individuals experiencing homelessness.
BES Executive Director Bob Rapp appeared on PBS39 as part of a special one-hour program about homelessness in the region on Jan. 30 called “Community Conversation: Unhoused in the Lehigh Valley.”
Rapp highlighted the importance of the PIT Count in understanding homelessness, emphasized the need for community involvement in addressing the housing crisis, and called for a shift in focus to recognizing homelessness as a “people problem, not a money problem,” which requires comprehensive support.
The segment can be found below, along with a transcript of Rapp’s conversation with PBS39 host Brittany Sweeney and LehighValleyNews.com reporter Julian Abraham. The full episode can be viewed on PBS39.org or YouTube.
Brittany Sweeney: In order to try and get an idea of just how many people are living without housing, the annual Point-in-Time Count, referred to as the PIT count, is conducted on a single night in January. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development uses that data to estimate the number of Americans, including veterans, without safe, stable housing. That effort got underway recently here in the Lehigh Valley, spearheaded by Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering Executive Director, Pastor Bob Rapp. He joins us now, along with lehighvalley news.com reporter Julian Abraham, who was able to witness the count firsthand. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us now. Bob, let’s start with you: the Point-in-Time Count. What is it? What goes into this count? It seems like a huge undertaking.
Bob Rapp: It is. It is pretty big. So it is a HUD-mandated order that provider organizations who get federal funding through HUD are to provide a census basically of our homeless population: sheltered and unsheltered folks. So we started on a Wednesday night to count all our folks in shelter, and the same night and the next day we go out in the field to count our folks in encampments, in bus stations, in garages, [and] in places that are not suited for human dwelling.
Sweeney: Sure. So who are the folks that are going out and counting? Obviously yourself, and you run Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering. But who else is joining you for this county?
Bob Rapp appearing on “Community Conversation: Unhoused in the Lehigh Valley” on PBS39.
Rapp: So we have some awesome teams. I have some great partners with the Conference of Churches; with Ben Stevens, and he creates teams for Allentown. I have Jeff Poach over in Easton, who creates the teams to take care of the Easton area. And then we have five provider organizations that come alongside of us this year to help us do the count.
Sweeney: So, Julian, you were able to ride along with Bob at the most recent count, and you’ve done this in years past. Was there anything that stuck out to you when you were reporting on this issue?
Julian Abraham: You know, of all the stories I work on, you know, most of them are pretty important, but this is the one that really stands out. When people ask me about my job, I tell them about this story. Last time, we saw people living in situations I could not ever imagine. We’ve seen someone sleeping in negative temperatures in basically two sleeping bags.
Sweeney: Bob, how do you find these people where? How do you know where to look?
Rapp: So again, we have a lot of great partners and a lot of awesome volunteers who keep us posted on where folks are. We go out in the field with other groups. You mentioned, Valley Health Partners Street Medicine, who keep us abreast on folks who are out there. So we can lend our hand to help some of the folks.
Sweeney: So what are these numbers used for? We know it’s for funding, but what kind of funding?
Rapp: So, HUD will use these this data to decide where their funding is going and how big of a funding it is. So, if states participate in this I would, I would imagine that they have a better chance of getting funding through HUD than states who don’t participate as well.
Sweeney: Julian, as you were riding along, were there places that you wouldn’t have thought to look?
Abraham: So many. The parking lots of the casino next door, parking lots of grocery stores, and these are places that you were me and people in the Lehigh Valley drive by daily. But it’s like Bob had sort of x-ray vision. He was seeing a layer of these things that we weren’t seeing. There’s three or or four cars in every parking lot that you saw, Bob, and you said, “Oh, that’s one.”
Sweeney: Bob, how do you find these people? What do you look for?
Rapp: If you get a Walmart, [or] a river and a bridge in a vicinity, I can guarantee I can find homeless folks. It just it gets to be a little bit of second nature. You know, you see folks in certain places often enough and know that that’s where they gravitate. So that’s where you go to look first. Like I say, if you go out long enough and walk with folks in their walk, you get to learn to understand their habits. It’s a lot easier to find folks and meet them where they are.
Sweeney: Sure, Bob, you’re working with these folks day in and day out. How do we fix this problem? How do we make this better? Why is this happening?
Rapp: The housing crisis is huge, not just here in the Valley, but of course, but across the nation. We have to utilize funding in very careful ways, but I tell folks all the time that this matter isn’t fully a money matter. This is a people matter. Communities have to step up, and churches have to step up to get folks to understand the problem first, and the understanding part of it is to know that these street neighbors are our brothers and sisters. They’re folks that were born here, they grew up here, they went to school here, they have families here, and yet they’ve fallen on hard times for whatever the reason. And we can help them get back on their feet again. We have to tackle the housing issue, and then we have to go at some of the root issues, which, again, we have a lot of provider organizations here in the valley that are ready to step up and do those jobs. We just need to be able to share together and get folks to the right avenues of health. The biggest thing is that this is a people problem, not a not a money problem.