Editor:

This year I volunteered for the Point in Time Count ("The Numbers Are Out and the Jury is In," July 16). I attended the training session and was told I would be phoned to tell me my assigned station to report to the day of the count. Two days before the count, I had received no call so I called in and could get no one to speak with. I then called Fox Olson and she said I could report to her station in Arcata and give out cups of coffee. It was clear that I would not be of any real use. I later found out that a number of people who had volunteered had not been called. I emailed the committee in charge of the count after the count had been done and related my experience. I received no response.

After speaking with a number of people with past and current PIT experience, I learned that the count is and has been poorly done. Some people implied that it was to the advantage of existing organizations to have it be so, but I got no clear picture as to why this would be. Fox Olson saying the count was just a snapshot is apparently an accurate statement but why is this the case? Funding rides on those numbers, so I would have thought that every effort should be made to have them be accurate. Maybe the PIT needs to be run by people not directly involved. Who is in charge of creating the committee?

Sylvia De Rooy, Eureka