Despite having more beds and occupying a new, larger building, the county's main homeless shelter remains full to overflowing.
For the sixth year, a group of county churches is preparing to host up to 25 homeless people a night for a week or two at a time, from Nov. 24 until March 29.
"We're always full," said Andrea Ingram, director of the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center. "We're more than full."
Even with 51 beds, compared with the 32 in the old building, Ingram said four beds in the emergency shelter room are often in use, with people sleeping in two of the rooms intended for counseling.
"It's wonderful that we have this new building and can help more people," she said. "We can respond quicker, but we still have more people seeking help," she said.
Several people who have sought help recently were "extremely vulnerable," said Ingram. One was a man who had spent the previous three days in a hospital and wasn't well enough to fend for himself on the streets. Another was a young mother with an infant."There are situations where it's more than shelter" at issue, she said.
More than 140 chronically homeless people have used Grassroots' new day center in North Laurel, a place on U.S. 1 open since July for four hours each Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
There, people - who often are mentally ill or have substance abuse problems and may have been homeless for years - come to wash their clothes, take a shower, attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, get something to eat and talk to a case manager.
Grassroots also places up to six families a night in motels.
Meanwhile, higher utility bills are putting more pressure on many families, pushing them closer to homelessness, said Bita Dayhoff, vice president of the Community Action Council, a nonprofit anti-poverty agency.
This fiscal year, 1,635 families have applied for help with utility bills, compared with 897 at this time last year. Dayhoff said her program has spent $325,000 this year. She said in 1997 utility bills represented 9.7 percent of a poverty-level income budget for a family of two. Now it is 15 percent on average.
The cold-weather shelter is an effort of 16 county churches whose congregations each host the homeless for a week or two.
Under the program, aided by Grassroots and the county government, a person must call Grassroots' hot line, 410-531-6677, to see if there is a bed available, according to Anna Katz, who coordinates the program.
