Orange County sent five teams to talk with homeless people in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and north of Interstate 40 Tuesday and Wednesday from 4 to 7 a.m. The event corresponded with the county's "point in time count," an annual accounting of the homeless population each year, which is sent to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which determines funding locally. "The point is to find the chronically homeless people who are most likely to die on the street and to give them highest priory for housing and services," said Jamie Rohe, the county's homeless program coordinator.

Volunteers rank homeless individuals on a scale of health questions, which help determine the amount and types of services needed for the area, Rohe said.

This year's accounting was more comprehensive than years past because of help from the Chapel Hill Police Department and Orange County Emergency Medical Services, which provided insight on where they receive calls from homeless people in the county. Both groups helped identify sites ahead of time where homeless people typically gather, she said. "It turns out EMS is a gold mine of information. They have a really positive relationship with a lot of homeless people. They minister to them; they heal them," Rohe said.

The United Way will release a report Monday on the data gathered throughout the Triangle. A team of providers from Orange County will then rank the homeless people who were surveyed by how medically vulnerable they are and then will try to assist those ranked highest, she said. The county also will compare the costs of responding to the health needs of the homeless to the cost of housing them.