CENTER TWP — With the homeless population in Butler County on the rise, officials at a homelessness summit on Tuesday began developing a 3- to 5-year plan for the county.

The Butler County Local Housing Options Team, a coalition of 26 agencies that help residents with housing issues, wants to develop a plan of action by the end of June.

“This is the first step in developing a strategic plan in Butler County involving how to fill existing gaps in housing and housing services. We’re looking at what we have and what we need,” said Amanda Feltenberger, director of service integration and quality management at county Human Services.

Officials estimate that the homeless population has tripled in the past seven to eight years, however it is difficult to track an exact number because not all homeless people are accounted for in the system. Catholic Charities recorded 1,887 total homeless people in the past 12 months.

Some people may live in their cars, stay with friends or family or sleep somewhere in public, all of which qualifies as homeless, but they aren’t recorded anywhere, Feltenberger said.

People who have been homeless for more than a year or have been homeless at least four times over three years are classified as chronically homeless, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The chronically homeless tend to be a small portion of the homeless population, but they consume the largest share of resources, said Allyson Rose, of county Human Services.

There also are people who were homeless but who now have a job and housing, but need continued support.

Rose said, “Incomes aren’t increasing. People are living on fixed incomes so our question is how are they going to be able to live independently and continue to support themselves.”

Many of the homeless are classified as at-risk homeless, which means they are close to being evicted or losing their place to stay, and need preventive services.

For the past three years, Catholic Charities has acted as the central intake for county residents who are seeking assistance with housing, said Amber Crowe, program director.

In the past 12 months, Catholic Charities talked to 1,090 households that were either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

Those households consist of 1,887 total people, of which 562 are younger than 18 years old, Crowe said.

Of those households, about 50 percent don’t end up seeking assistance, 20 percent go onto a wait list and the remaining 30 percent get connected with an agency that can provide assistance, she said.

Participants in the summit Tuesday listed gaps in services offered to residents. These included: affordable housing; recovery houses for single women; rent, back tax and mortgage assistance; a year-round emergency shelter; more education for landlords; housing for sex offenders and convicts; child care during the evening; transportation; and affordable housing for disabled people.

The group’s next steps will be to figure how some of those needs could be addressed and what agency or source of funding could cover them.

Joyce Ainsworth, director of county Human Services, said that homelessness can be caused by a variety of factors, including economic conditions, lack of affordable housing and drug addiction. Because of that, there is no easy answer for getting people off the streets.

“Everybody’s situation and story is different,” Ainsworth said.