PIT Count Documents Homelessness in MontCo

I’ll never have the level of fortitude and toughness required to sleep outside in the middle of winter. 

Yet people do – equipped with tarps, pallet structures, tents, camp fires, thermal blankets, and more. 

Wednesday, January 21, was the night of the annual “Point in Time” count in Montgomery County. Volunteers with Your Way Home dispersed to select areas in our county to take a count of people experiencing homelessness. The statistics, required by HUD for federal funding purposes, are imperfect but it offers a glimpse into the conditions endured by those without a permanent, regular address. 

I helped complete the four-hour count in Pottstown with 12 other people. Our guide was a staff member from Street Medicine (Access Services), who knew the locations in town where people were likely to be found. 

“Hello camp, Street Medicine. Is everyone OK tonight?” he would announce as he approached tents. Answers are voluntary (many declined). Tablets contained specific demographic questions, which could be completed in 5-10 minutes. We also offered hand warmers. 

This picture, taken in January 2025, shows "Tent City" along College Drive in Pottstown before it was cleared.

The individuals surveyed were friendly and included a woman whose last address was Second Street, the same block I live on. That hit home. I wondered about the circumstances surrounding her exit from stable housing to a small encampment, where she lives with her partner. 

One man was seemingly jovial and spoke to the volunteers as he started a contained campfire. He used to have a pet bobcat until it was struck by a vehicle near Industrial Highway, one volunteer noted. 

Another woman, who was camping with her partner near the Schuylkill River, answered the questions through her tent’s open screen. Her last known address was the city of Reading. Surprisingly, no one asked to be transported to a Code Blue shelter. All of them were open on this night. 

In Lansdale, on a recent night that reached single digits, the men’s shelter is mostly quiet. About 30 cots are dispersed on the hardwood floor, all of them filled. 

One man asked for a refill of his ginger ale, while another grabbed a late snack in the dining area while he changed into dry socks. 

The light sound of snoring and dreamstate murmuring hovered above the room. I made my hourly rounds, trying not to walk too loudly on the creaky hardwood floor. My friend, Joanne, who wrote about her experience last year, is a regular volunteer at the women’s shelter in Lansdale. 

At shift-change time, I thought about how cold it is as I walked to my car. At 7 a.m., these homeless men will wake up, eat a prepared breakfast, and head back outside. Where, you may wonder? The library, maybe a church – until the shelter opens again on a declared Code Blue evening.  

This is why supportive, low-cost housing is so desperately needed everywhere. We can and must do better.

Interested in volunteering at a Code Blue shelter?

To find out more about volunteering for the TLC for the People shelter in Norristown, visit: https://tlcforthepeople.org/volunteer/

For more information on volunteering in Lansdale, please email:

codeblue@lanan.com or visit https://www.facebook.com/codebluetlc/

To sign up to volunteer in through The Open Link in Upper Perkiomen: https://theopenlink.org/get-involved/volunteer-form.html. Choose code blue as the category you would like to participate in.

Your time and compassion can make a life-saving difference this winter. Thank you for helping us protect our most vulnerable community members.