I've got more Ruston content coming up, but it won't be today. On Thursday evening and Friday afternoon, I met with Karen Pickett, Bradley Huson and some folks at Don's Market.

I'll post the interviews after I transcribe them this weekend.

I sat down this afternoon with Dennis Mutuma. He recently arrived from Kenya to attend Tacoma Community College, but his schooling is only paid through the first quarter.

I'll have more at a later time about him, but he's got a great story - including securing an education despite a dysfunctional childhood, spending four months in prison when he was 10 and flying out of Nairobi on the day that election violence rippled across the country.

Keep your eyes peeled for this inspiring story.

(And, on a side note -- Who knew you could take the SAT in East Africa?)

I just got off the phone with Rae Anne Giron, who's coordinating the homeless count for Pierce County. She said didn't have any early indicators of trends.

But she said it appears there isn’t a major migration from Tacoma to unincorporated parts of Pierce County following the city’s aggressive panhandling ban and its closure of homeless camps.

“I spoke with (Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness) teams, and they haven’t seen areas of major growth in the unincorporated parts,” she said. “Individuals are more attracted to metropolitan areas, and they’re used to the services they can find there. So if they’re moving, they’re likely moving to other metropolitan areas.”

Olivia Reibev had knocked on three doors at Lakewood’s Biltmore Motel before someone answered. Reibev, a student at the University of Washington, introduced herself and said she was a volunteer with Pierce County’s homeless survey. She asked the woman who answered if she considered herself homeless.

“Well,” the 55-year-old woman said, “I wouldn’t be living here if I wasn’t.”

The Lakewood volunteers were counting a portion of Pierce County’s residents who often go unseen – people who are living for extended periods of times in motels because they don’t have anywhere else to go.

The volunteers, toting clipboards with a stack of golden survey sheets, interviewed people at 12 motels Friday. A police officer remained off-site with cell phones at the ready if needed. And the volunteers – who were split into two teams – had mixed results: Some didn’t want to talk, others rambled about their life stories, and many weren’t in their rooms or didn’t open their door.

Volunteers handed out business cards to help put them in contact with someone who can connect them with social services, and a resource guide of available services was left in the office of each motel the teams visited.

=> Read more!

Photographer Russ Carmack and I have been out following part of Pierce County's homeless count in Lakewood. I'll post some more about that in a little bit.

I also have a few more Ruston interviews today, and a story that links Kenya and Tacoma.