Jacqueline Thinom-Pong, left, and Hideichi Mori complete a survey for a resident in the Gill Breeze subdivision of Yigo on Jan. 27, 2023. A resident survey is part of the point-in-time count done by the Guam Homeless Coalition and volunteers.
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Homeless Coalition is recruiting 275 volunteers for its annual point-in-time homeless count scheduled for Jan. 31.
According to a press release from GHC, the count, conducted nationwide on the last Friday of January, provides data on the number of people experiencing homelessness on Guam and helps assess available resources and service gaps.
Robert San Agustin, vice chair of GHC, spoke to The Guam Daily Post on Monday.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully getting some good volunteers out there so we can get the good amount of teams needed to get an accurate snapshot of what the homelessness count is at the moment,” said San Agustin.
Based on previous counts, San Agustin expects to find approximately 1,000 individuals experiencing homelessness.
“If you look at the PIT counts over the years, it does stay around 1,000,” he said. “The 2024 count showed 1,249 individuals out there…by November,…based on our numbers, the count we had was a little bit over 1,000.”
The coalition currently has about 100 volunteers registered and continues seeking additional participants. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and complete a mandatory five-hour training. Training sessions will be held at the Sinajana mayor’s office from Jan. 15-17, at the First Church of God in Barrigada on Jan. 22, and virtually on Jan. 23. Each session is conducted from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The coalition is also preparing 500 bags containing food and hygiene supplies to distribute during the count. Through its emergency food assistance program, the coalition will provide food items, while community donations of hygiene supplies are being collected.
“We’ll be doing a hygiene drive for items like toothbrushes, soap, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner,” San Agustin said. Donations can be dropped off at the Office of Homelessness Assistance and Poverty Prevention on the second floor of the ITC building, or at the Nieves M. Flores Memorial Library in Hagåtña by Jan. 24.
Those interested in volunteering can register online at https://bit.ly/GHC2025PITCountRegistration or through the Guam Homeless Coalition website at https://guamhomelesscoalition.org/2025-pit-count/.
When asked how the coalition will continue during 2025, San Agustin said, “As a coalition, we are just going to concentrate on trying to help the people.”
He added, “If the (attorney general’s) office or any other agency comes to us and says, ‘This person here needs help,’ we’ll do what we’ve always done and do the outreach. We’ll go out there, talk to the people and see how we can connect them to the services that they need.”
