 On Wednesday, January 31st, the East Kentucky Dream Center participated in the annual K-Count. This yearly census for the homeless population is used to better assess their needs while shelters use the information gathered to acquire federal funding. East Kentucky Dream Center Executive Director Rachel Dotson gives us more details. The Dream Center works with our partners, West Care Homeless Shelter, Mountain Comprehensive Care Center, some of the rehabs, just different locations to get actual numbers on that K-Count. The K-Count is from the Kentucky Housing Coalition. Basically, that determines the HUD grant dollars that come into this area. The K-Count determines if we have X amount of homeless people, we're going to get funding based upon that number. You know, a lot of people in eastern Kentucky think downtown Piperville and surrounding county doesn't have homeless. We do. Homeless people don't just, it's not just locals. They get out of jail, they get out of rehab, and they have no way back because we don't have a public transportation system. So whatever their reason is, we're here to help them. We want to get a number on them so we can help get them the services that they need. The Dream Center is dedicated to helping the less fortunate by providing food and clothing during the K-Count. This year, homeless individuals could visit the Dream Center instead of waiting to be counted. So we just celebrated our fifth anniversary here at the Dream Center. One of the things that we have been able to do is we get out and we build relationships with the homeless. We help get them jobs, we help get them into housing, we help get them into rehab, we help get them the medical care, the food, the clothing, the necessities that they need. So we did things a little different. Instead of going out to the locations that they are, today was one of our free lunch days so we did our K-Count within. When they came to pick up their lunch and their free meal, you know, we asked the questions that are important to fill out the surveys. One of the, I guess, misconceptions is that you want to run out and you want to help somebody that lives under a bridge or in a tent, but they don't always like their life in the spotlight. They don't always want to feel like they're, you know, they're put out there, they're put on the spot. So that's one of the good things the Dream Center does. We've built relationships but we allow them to come to us for their needs. Reporting for Mountaintop News, I'm Nick Colum.