Fordham Seeking Volunteers for 2011 HOPE Count

Are you interested in giving up one night of your time to help the homeless?

Fordham University’s Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice is recruiting students, staff and faculty to participate in the annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) count, to be held at the Rose Hill campus on Monday, Jan. 31.

The annual event attracts some 3000 volunteers citywide, who spend one night a year combing streets, subways, parks and public spaces to count the numbers of New Yorkers who live unsheltered in the city.

For the past six years, Fordham has been designated one of the volunteer training center sites for Bronx neighborhoods by the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Last year some 120 volunteers were trained at the Fordham site to participate in the count, which takes place in surrounding Bronx neighborhoods from midnight to 4 a.m. Groups travel on foot and are accompanied by New York City police patrolmen.

Information gathered on the 2011 HOPE count will be used to determine federal and state money to be allocated to New York and, more specifically, to each borough.

For more information or to volunteer, contact Caitlin Becker associate coordinator of Community Service at the Day Center or register on line.

--Janet Sassi