The health department said homelessness has declined by 18 percent in a May 15 press release. But Aaron Speyer, New Life Program Chaplain at The Lighthouse Mission Ministries, said the population at the shelter has doubled since he started working there four years ago.

The mission continues to provide free meals and temporary shelter to the homeless in Whatcom County. The mission also provides transitional housing for those who are not using drugs so they can transition to a more sustainable form of living.

Speyer also said he attributes the rapid increase in the number of people they serve mostly to the economic downturn.

“We’ve seen an increase in people with qualifications in the workplace,” he said.

The increase in shelter population has been of people that have associate degrees and job skills. He said there used to be jobs available to these people, but more people are applying for the same entry-level positions.

The health department fanned out across the county and counted each homeless person it saw. Based on those numbers and previous numbers, it concluded that homelesness has decreased.

The county set a goal in 2008 to cut homelessness in half by the year 2015.

Ron Buchinski, executive director at the mission, said the health department may have seen a decrease in homeless people at one certain time, but the results do not necessarily mean a decrease in homelessness overall.

“It’s like they’re just taking a statistic from a certain guy at a certain place,” he said. “Then going to that same place and seeing that he’s not there, so he must not be homeless.”

Buchinski said the count does not take into account people who have left the area or who have died.

The Agape House, also run by the mission, provides shelter for homeless women and children.

In 2010, the mission and Agape House served about 117,400 meals to homeless people.

Greg Winter, director of the Whatcom Homeless Service Center and Opportunity Council, said it’s possible that specific shelters could have increases in the number of people they serve. The county's survery on homeless numbers is intended only to be a snapshot of the county’s homeless population at a certain time, he said.

The council is one of 30 programs in Washington.

Winter said it’s remarkable that there has been a decrease in the number of homeless people, despite the economic recession.

“It used to be only five people applied for a job at McDonald’s or with a temp agency,” Winter said. “But now 50 or 100 people all apply for those positions.”

Federal funding to aid the homeless has been cut drastically.

Whatcom County homeless programs have found funding from other services, including a $150,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help homeless victims of domestic violence find permanent housing.

Despite these new sources of funding, data released by the health department implies that people are still struggling to survive on their own. The number of people who have had to move in with friends and family due to economic hardships has increased by 24 percent, according to data released by the county health department.

The unemployment rate in Whatcom County has nearly doubled in the last four years, from 4.9 percent in 2008 to 9.6 percent in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.