School helping count homeless

About 85 volunteers, mostly students from Vanguard University, attempted to count Costa Mesa’s homeless population Wednesday night by canvassing the city with clipboards and flashlights.

The count is being led by the sociology and anthropology departments at Vanguard and two local nonprofit organizations, Serving People in Need and Mercy House.

Mercy House offers programs to prevent homelessness and transitional housing to people trying to get off the streets in Orange County and Ontario.

Serving People in Need, based in Costa Mesa, helps find permanent housing for the working poor, homeless and people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction.

Organizers hope the effort will result in an accurate estimate of the number of homeless people in the city and identify their needs to help eliminate homelessness.

Preliminary numbers from the count will be available later this week.

— Brianna Bailey