Goodwill Industries of East Texas volunteers pose at Gateway to Hope on Thursday. Brenda Hampton, one of the Point-in-Time Count 2025 co-coordinators, helped lead the team of volunteers. From left to right: Sean Powell, Stephanie McGee, Brenda Hampton and Ashlee Langley of Goodwill Industries of East Texas. (Raquel Villatoro/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Goodwill Industries of East Texas led the Smith County Point-in-Time Count for 2025. The count, which tallies the number of people experiencing homelessness in a community, was previously organized by the East Texas Human Needs Network.

PIT Count 2025 coordinators Brenda Hampton and Chevella Layne managed 10 volunteers on Thursday morning to ensure the homeless population in Tyler got counted.

Throughout Texas, volunteers work with local organizations to help conduct the Annual Point-in-Time Count on the same day. The purpose of the PIT Count is to get an accurate count of the homeless population in a specific county. The information collected determines funding for homeless populations and organizations working to help them.

“It is very important that we do an accurate count to make sure that we can give a(n) accurate count because we really wanna be able to help the people that come in here and get the funding for our programs,” said Trevesia Chevis, The Salvation Army of Tyler PIT Count 2025 volunteer.

At midnight, The Salvation Army of Tyler started counting the people staying in its shelter. Ahead of the count, volunteers readied their stat sheets to ensure they were tracking who was staying and coming in and out. They expected to receive people up till midnight as temperatures continue to be cold on Thursday night. Volunteers had until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday to input the information collected.

“We wanna make sure that we get it done so that they can have the information so everybody can be on time and then it puts us ahead of the game in case we miss someone,” Chevis said.

Volunteers went to known encampments, escorted by Tyler Police Department officers, including Officer Shane Jasper, the Tyler Police Department Homeless Outreach Coordinator. Since 2024, Jasper has noticed an increase in the homeless population in Tyler. This is partly due to the limited time people can stay at The Salvation Army or unable to stay due to not following protocols. In addition, Jasper has noticed more people with mental health issues, Jasper said.

Jasper would like to see a way to get homeless people evaluated and connected to health resources. Oftentimes when they offer help to the homeless community, they will refuse, Jasper said.

“Maybe (if) there was a medical location that they could go to and get the evaluation, and then go from there. That’s a start,” Jasper said. “Right now, they’re not getting (to) any medical facility, once they were away from the family (or) person that was helping them get to those medical facilities.”

Through his work as homeless outreach coordinator, Jasper has gotten to know Tyler’s homeless community and worked to let people know ahead of time about the PIT Count. On Thursday morning, people lined up to get counted at Gateway to Hope, Jasper said.

Due to the cold weather, some of the homeless community were placed in hotels by the Tyler Street Team. However, Jasper states they counted at least 12 camps.

Goodwill Industries of East Texas heard about the PIT Count in late December. In January, Hampton and Layne received their training. They also met up with the former PIT Count coordinator Mike Richardson to prepare.

“We knew we had to do it. So whether we knew what we were doing or not, it’s been a learning experience,” Hampton said. “It’s been a eye-opening experience. We’ve been taking numerous amounts of notes so that whoever takes over this next year, we’re able to give them all this information that they need so they can get going.”

Due to the shorter time period to prepare, there were less volunteers than last year. PIT Count coordinators encouraged their volunteers and to not focus on numbers of people they logged. Volunteers log the information the collect on the Counting Us application.

“We just tell everybody, ‘don’t feel bad that you didn’t get a lot of numbers because we’re gonna do the best that we can do with what we have,’” Hampton said. “But we have been able to do a lot today, so we’re excited about that.”

Volunteer Stephanie McGee, Mission Services Manager at Goodwill Industries of East Texas, went to parking lots where people were living in their cars. After talking to the people at various locations and getting their permission, they asked them questions for the survey and handed them a goody bag with water bottles, peanut butter crackers and a piece of candy.

Many of the people McGee spoke to had not heard of the survey. However, after they explained what the purpose was, they agreed to do it. Seeing the encampments up close showed McGee there is a need for resources.

“They’re still people,” McGee said. “And just to make sure the homeless people knew about all the resources in the area. There’s a lot of things out there that a lot of people don’t know and so they don’t get help in the areas that they need.”

Goodwill Industries does outreach through offering workforce development. In the future, they hope to do more outreach to the homeless community. They currently offer help with signing up for benefits, through their program GoodAssist. For more information, call 903-581-5422.