A recent report from the Maricopa Regional Continuum of Care concluded that the number of people experiencing homelessness continues to rise in Maricopa County. The most recent count in January 2019 showed 6,614 people experiencing homelessness in Maricopa County, up 316 from the previous year.

According to David Iverson, Ann Speer and Kathy Swetzoff with the local Extended Hands Food Bank, that estimate might actually be a bit low.

In the report, Fountain Hills was one of five communities reporting no instances of homelessness. According to the day-to-day experiences of the Extended Hands crew, that’s simply incorrect.

“We don’t know the categories that they covered, statistically, but yes, we know for a fact we have people who have lived in our arroyos, in cars, behind buildings, in the parking lots of our grocery stores or in storage units,” Speer said. “We have some who pass through but, long-termers, we have some here in town.”

The crew was hesitant to put an exact figure on the number of people experiencing homelessness in Fountain Hills, but said that 10 was a safe estimate.

“It’s hard to give you a number because nobody is really tracking that,” Swetzoff said. “We don’t track them, we just try to service them for what their specific needs are.”

According to Speer, the number of people needing the assistance of Extended Hands mirrors the trend seen in Maricopa County as a whole; it’s rising.

“We get more people all the time,” she said. “We’re always seeing new people.

Swetzoff said there doesn’t seem to be a specific cause for the increase so much as a host of reasons. From losing one’s job to exiting a home for any number of reasons, there isn’t a factor that seems to be the primary cause for the rise.

Iverson said that one of the issues it that there is a perception in Fountain Hills that homelessness is not a problem.

“We don’t see people pushing shopping carts around town so, naturally, we think there are no homeless,” he said. “We don’t see them standing on the corner with a sign, probably because that’s not allowed here.”

Iverson noted that homelessness might be even more prevalent in the community if it was not for situations such as multiple family levels living in a single home; something Extended Hands sees a lot of.

“We’ve got situations where you’ve got the grandparents, the parents, the kids and the grandkids all living in one house,” he added.

While the Extended Hands crew holds that the recent homelessness study inaccurately portrays Fountain Hills, they agree that the study’s conclusion is correct; homelessness in Maricopa County is a bigger issue than many realize.

For more information about Extended Hands Food Bank, visit ehfb.org.