INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis on Wednesday started looking into the number of people experiencing homeless.

The Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention hosted the beginning of the annual Point-in-Time Count. It’s a census on the number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in the city.

Adrianne Todman, deputy secretary of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development, explained the reasons behind the survey. “So, No. 1, it provides us with, you can’t do what you can’t measure. If you want to look at reducing the count, the question is: Who’s out there? And so, we use this information not just to inform us numerically who’s homeless — how many veterans, how many unaccompanied youth, how many families with children — but we also look at it from making policy decisions.”

Organizers say the count will run until Sunday.