Bergen County’s efforts to reduce homelessness shows in its annual homeless count. The county’s 2019 Point-In-Time Count showed a 23% decrease in people experiencing homelessness, 83 fewer people. The county’s 2019 count also noted a 22% drop in households experiencing homelessness, a decrease of 58 households.
The county’s number of chronically homeless people — people with a long-term disabling condition, who have been continually homeless for a year or more — is even lower. In 2019, nine people were found to be chronically homeless in emergency shelters, and two were unsheltered.
The county also joined Built for Zero, an initiative from Community Solutions, a national nonprofit organization that works to end homelessness. The movement currently counts Lane County among its more than 70 communities working to “measurably end homelessness.”
