At the annual “Project Homeless Connect” event in Aberdeen Friday, more than 50 homeless people turned out for help with everything from getting passports and drivers licenses to basic needs like a free shower or haircut.
Held in the Aberdeen Senior Center, the event is organized by Coastal Community Action Program, and combines the services with the annual “Point in Time” count, which includes staff and volunteers going around Grays Harbor County and trying to count how many homeless people there are. Similar counts are scheduled for every county in the state.
One longtime service provider at the event is Pat Gordon, from Pat’s Trim & Style in Aberdeen. She’s provided free haircuts for homeless people at the event for the past 10 years.
“I love doing it; I’ve met a lot of nice, nice people,” said Gordon. “It helps you better understand the homeless.”
At 11 a.m., Gordon was cutting the long hair of Jeffrey Traversie, who said he’s been homeless for most of the past three years.
“The last time I got a haircut was a while ago, I don’t quite remember when actually,” said Traversie.
The large room of the senior center was filled with more than 30 booths, where service providers, including some for employment and medical services, assisted homeless people who came in.
Next to Gordon were four more hairdressers who were hard at work, and behind her was a separate station for people to get acupuncture services in reclined chairs. Doris Reed, from Reed Acupuncture in Aberdeen, has attended “Project Homeless Connect” several times in the past five years, and said acupuncture can help the homeless population which experiences trauma on a more frequent basis.
“It just helps relieve pain, stress and trauma,” said Reed before applying the small needles to a man’s ears. “Sometimes if they’re having a specific pain, like in the hands, to help with that specifically.”
The event is another way for CCAP to get more people in to fill out the survey and get a record of how many homeless people there are. Aside from the service event, CCAP workers and volunteers went throughout the county counting people themselves Thursday and Friday, but there isn’t a firm total yet. Last year there were 174 reported sheltered and unsheltered homeless people, according to their count.
Organizer Jennifer Madison, CCAP’s office coordinator, said the event’s important because it’s one of the few places homeless people can visit each year to get almost every service they could be looking for.
“It’s really a one stop shop where you just say, ‘Come on over on Friday,’ and then everything is here,” said Madison. “Even if they just come in this one time, they have so many different services.”
Madison added that the event felt incomplete without Vicky Johnson, CCAP’s senior nutrition coordinator, who passed away in a car accident last week and helped organize “Project Homeless Connect.”
“When she passed, it was like a piece of the puzzle went missing,” said Madison.
(Louis Krauss | Grays Harbor News Group) Doris Reed provides acupuncture services to Jim Law at the Project Homeless Connect event this Friday in Aberdeen.
