A grouping of several broken down campers and tents is tucked away less than 300 feet off a main North Whidbey road. Living there is a man, a woman, the woman’s two adult sons intermittently and two Chihuahuas.

The couple pulled into the wooded area two weeks ago to get their non-licensed camper off the road and it stopped working. Both are dogged with multiple health conditions, have to rely on public transportation to carry them to the North Whidbey Help House for food and warm themselves around a fire they build in a beat-up standing grill.

They said they’ve been homeless for about a year, but it’s not the first time. When asked about the island’s homeless population, the woman said, “There’s a lot of kids out there.”

The encampment is one of many lesser-known areas county-wide where the homeless congregate and find shelter. It was included in the annual point-in-time homeless count Thursday.

More than 100 volunteers at four locations offered free food, clothing and necessities while outreach groups explored wooded areas and abandoned structures in search of the county’s homeless.

Those who connected with volunteers were assisted in filling out a brief form about their circumstances and the nature of their homelessness. The federally and state mandated survey will allow the county and other governmental agencies to paint a clearer picture of the area’s homeless population.

The outreach portion of the county is new and expanded this year, according to Joanne Pellant, who said it has been a “monumental task.” That task seems to have yielded good results, according to housing program coordinator Catherine Reid, who said just on North Whidbey the number of survey’s collected jumped from five to 30.

“We had a great turnout,” said Reid, who participated at the open house at Oak Harbor’s Spin Cafe. “It was really wonderful.”

Although unofficial numbers won’t be available for weeks, Reid said it looks like they have been able to “identify a lot of folks who are experiencing homelessness.”

“My takeaway is that it was a great continuation of last year when we did the open houses for the first time,” Reid said.

Faith Wilder, who led the outreach team on South Whidbey, said the number of people at the open house grew from about a dozen last year to more than 60 this year.

“We know we’re way over what last year was,” Wilder said.