The homeless population in Orange County, New York, has climbed to 380 as of early this year, according to preliminary point-in-time data.
Point-in-time (PIT) is a mandatory annual count of sheltered and unsheltered people for communities nationwide receiving federal homeless grants.
For Orange County, the homeless count is 12 percent higher than that of the previous year, though still lower than the pre-pandemic level.
PIT was conducted in the county on Jan. 27 by more than a dozen local nonprofits, police agencies, and hospitals, led by Continuum of Care (COC).
On that day, 315 people were counted in different kinds of shelters, and another 65 were found on the streets or out in the woods.
Of the unsheltered people, 24 have been placed in emergency housing, six in permanent housing, and five in temporary housing, according to Orange County COC President Chris Molinelli.
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the county’s reported homeless population was 470, which dropped to 280 in 2021 before climbing back to about 340 in 2022.
Molinelli said the decline was partly because of the eviction moratorium at the height of the pandemic.
New York passed a law in 2020 to prohibit evictions of tenants who were financially hurt by COVID-19 and couldn’t afford rent.
As the moratorium was lifted early last year, the homeless population went back up, a trend that continued this year and will likely go into 2024, he told The Epoch Times.
Another factor is the rising rental and housing costs in the Hudson Valley area, he added.
Sometimes, even with the help of governmental aid, certain individuals or families still couldn’t afford housing and ended up in shelters or on the streets, he said.
Molinelli is also the executive director of HONOR, the county’s largest homeless shelter, which houses about 130 people in its Middletown facility on any given night.
The shelter is designed as a temporary aid, with the goal of securing housing for an individual within three months of stay; for a family with children, the time window is extended to four months.
A lot of the work at HONOR is about building relationships with brokers and landlords in the areas to successfully place its guests into more stable housing, Molinelli said.
HONOR is largely funded by the county government.
Other shelters in the county include those provided by Newburgh Ministry and the nonprofit Fearless.
Several warming centers are also open during winter months in the county’s three cities: Port Jervis, Middletown, and Newburgh.
