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During a sunny break amid freezing weather on Tuesday, about a dozen tables and vans at Wallace Marine Park were laden with food, winter weather supplies and resources.
The people staffing them offered items to unsheltered residents, along with a chance to participate in a survey which helps guide policy on homelessness.
The event, hosted by the Salem Housing Authority, combined resources with the federally-required Point-in-Time count, which measures how many people are living on Salem’s streets, in cars and in shelters in the community. Organizers this year aimed to make the count more beneficial to participants, providing services and supplies rather than just extracting information.
Around 11:30 a.m., over a dozen unsheltered people and their pets were in attendance, visiting tables offering connections to health care, housing, addiction treatment and supportive services. Among the offerings were hot pulled pork sandwiches and chips from the housing authority.
At one of the tables, Marianne Bradshaw stood by bags of dog food, jugs of water, warm socks, snacks and more. Whenever someone approached, she greeted them with a smile and asked if they were interested in participating in the Point-in-Time count. Most agreed, and some said they’d already taken it earlier that week.
This year’s count, between Jan. 23 and 29, sent over 200 volunteers into the community and to resource gatherings to ask people where they slept the night of Jan. 22.
Though considered an undercount of the total number of unsheltered people, it’s required every odd-numbered year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal agency that funds housing and homeless services. A sheltered count of people living in emergency shelters and transitional housing is required every year.
In 2023, the counts found 878 total unsheltered people living in Marion and Polk counties, and 677 in shelters, a slight decrease from 2022 which counted 879 unsheltered people and 926 in emergency shelter.

Bradshaw, who coordinated this year’s count with the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance, was a volunteer surveyor during the 2023 count. The alliance opted to skip last year’s unsheltered count, taking a break to consider how to better conduct a survey with invasive but federally required questions that include someone’s experience with disability, substance use and domestic violence.
As a result, Bradshaw said this year’s count had more outreach events, alongside the more traditional approach of sending volunteers to find people out in the community. She said smaller events in Jefferson, Turner, Stayton and Mill City had great turnouts.
“We’re at locations where folks looking for supplies and experiencing housing instability might be, so we can offer them the opportunity to do the survey,” she said.
The resource events allow them to survey populations who might otherwise be hard to find, like people who sleep in their cars. Earlier that week, Bradshaw was at a food bank in Woodburn where she said an estimated 20% of users are experiencing homelessness.
“If they’re coming into the food banks, or they’re coming into Helping Hands Resources in Salem, and our folks are there inviting them to do the surveys, that gives us a better chance to gather information,” Bradshaw said.
The count is expected to return next January, along with the emphasis on resources.
Next to her table, Bradshaw put up a poster with a sticker poll asking respondents to vote on what supplies they wanted to see given out during future Point-in-Time counts, with gloves, flashlights and Meals Ready-to-Eat among the favored options.
When data is released later this year Bradshaw said it will provide important information for improving Salem’s network of services.
She motioned to a woman holding a bag of supplies visiting one of the resource booths.
“What’s most exciting to me is seeing each individual connect with a warm, kind person,” Bradshaw said.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.
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Abbey McDonald joined the Salem Reporter in 2022. She previously worked as the business reporter at The Astorian, where she covered labor issues, health care and social services. A University of Oregon grad, she has also reported for the Malheur Enterprise, The News-Review and Willamette Week.