What's at stake?
The count is a useful tool for local regions to help them better understand the needs of their local homeless population.
The Fresno-Madera region launches its Point In Time Count on Tuesday night — a routine federally required process that sees the country take stock of its local homeless population on a given night in January.
Tuesday night’s count will be the first managed by Fresno’s County Administrative Office. It will also be the first to transition away from a visual, hand-count method of previous years in favor of a survey-based approach. The county said in a Tuesday morning news release that the new method will help clean up the possibility for errors during the counting process, and provide a new standard for the region to compare going forward.
“While the improved data collection may result in changes in PIT count numbers, it will not necessarily indicate sudden increases or decreases in homelessness,” the Tuesday morning press release said. “Because of the shift in methodology, this year’s results should not be directly compared with prior years’ PIT count numbers. The FMCoC will use this year’s data as a new baseline for future comparisons.”
Last year’s count showed continued overall homelessness growth in the Fresno-Madera region — a growth trend that has persisted now for over a decade. However, that data has yet to be certified by the federal government, leaving local cities and counties in the dark on a more detailed analysis.
The last certified count in 2023 saw a decrease in homelessness in the City of Fresno, in spite of overall growth in the region.
Divided Fresno Board of Supervisors says they stand with ICE
The Fresno Board Of Supervisors approved through a split 3-2 vote to add language to the county’s federal advocacy efforts to make clear that they “support federal laws removing criminal illegal aliens.”
The vote was a last-minute addition by Supervisor Nathan Magsig following a request from Board Chair Garry Bredefeld during the supervisors’ discussion on finalizing their federal advocacy goals. Bredfeld originally asked county staff to add “support federal laws and immigration customs and enforcement efforts to remove criminal, illegal aliens from our community” under its criminal justice goals.
The request was met with some pushback, with Board Vice Chair Luis Chavez and Supervisor Brian Pacheco voting against the added language. Chavez in particular questioned whether the move would risk infringing upon Senate Bill 54 — California’s near-decade-old sanctuary state law that restricts the way local law enforcement can cooperate with ICE deportation efforts.
Pacheco said at Tuesday’s meeting that he would have supported the amendment if it was made clear that the support is for detaining criminal immigrants, some of whom are unprotected under the sanctuary laws.
“I don’t want to stray too far from that because I don’t want to get into the national debate,” Pacheco said. “I don’t think it’s our lane. I want to stay away from that.”
Tuesday’s move comes as critics of ICE, which now include many Democrat federal lawmakers, have gone as far as to demand the agency be dissolved, and its leadership to be brought into questioning over its aggressive deportation tactics.
The outcry comes after ICE has now killed two American citizens this month in Minneapolis, Minnesota protesting those efforts.
