“These counts are done to determine what the need is, which plays into the funding we get for human services for the county,” Reed said.

For the first time, the count will include people who are in an imminent risk of becoming homeless in the next year to help better prepare services, Reed said.

Stations will be set up at malls, police stations, grocery stores, bus stations and hospitals, and volunteers will go into the streets to count homeless people who are not staying in shelters, Reed said.

The number of homeless people living in shelters is tallied annually, but those living on the streets only are counted every two years, said Darla Dowker Jackson, the coordinator of the Greater Lansing Homeless Resolution Network.

“It’s important for all of us to know the need in this community,” Jackson said. “We know the economy has gone downhill over the last few years. What better measure is there to know the actual fallout of the economic downturn than the most vulnerable citizens?”

The number of people using homeless services increased about 30 percent since last year and Ingham County is in the top 10 in number of homeless people among counties in the state, Jackson said.

In 2008, there were an estimated 86,000 homeless people in Michigan, and that number is expected to increase this year because of the economy and the inclusion of people who are at risk of becoming homeless, said Angela Mayeaux, executive director of Haven House in East Lansing.

Haven House is a shelter dedicated to taking in families who have no place to live, and the count is an important part of securing more funding to maintain or expand operations, Mayeaux said.

“Every time that we count somebody, that assists us in verifying the need of homeless folks in our area,” she said. “As we all live through this economic downturn, it comes a lot closer to our lives when we realize we’re one or two paychecks away from not being able to pay that mortgage or the rent. … It’s very important to keep them stable, to keep the children stable and to keep the community stable.”

The city of Lansing has more than 4,250 homeless people in the city, said Valerie Benjamin-Glover, community organizer for Michigan People’s Action.

Michigan People’s Action has organized rallies across the state for affordable housing and services for homeless people, and Benjamin-Glover said the problem is only getting worse.

“A lot of churches that used to serve only 100 people a week — now they’re finding that they’re serving three to four times that amount of people,” she said. “Those services only go so far.”