Even in a tony Philadelphia suburb, some struggle to find shelter

TANISHA CARTER has never thought of herself as homeless. The 29-year-old Ambler resident was a college graduate, a hard worker, a responsible mother. For four years, she lived in subsidized housing, a benefit she was eligible for after a childhood fire left her with burns over almost 90 percent of her body.

But just over a year ago, Carter was given a choice: Either she could quit her job, keep her apartment and live off her benefits alone, or she could give up her benefits and pay full-price for her housing.

Both were impossible for her. Not work, after she'd worked so hard for her degree? Pay full-price for an apartment in costly Montgomery County?

Carter chose to keep her job, to give up her benefits. She and her 5-year-old son moved in temporarily with a relative, then found themselves seeking shelter through the Inter-Faith Housing Alliance. That's where they remain, with six more months to go until they have to move again.

"This was a very humbling experience to accept this situation, probably the hardest moment of my life," Carter said during a recent interview at her spacious apartment near Ambler's main drag. "Not all people who are 'homeless' are homeless for deviant reasons. As someone said, we're all a paycheck away from being in this situation."

Even in tony suburban counties like this one, people are struggling with finding shelter. The homeless may not be lying on street grates as they are in the city, but they are there, hidden, staying with relatives or sleeping in cars or trying to take advantage of already-stressed programs that can put roofs over their heads.

The numbers of homeless have been steady. During a 2010 "point in time" count done in Montgomery County, officials estimated that more than 425 people were homeless, either on the streets or in shelters.

"But no one thinks that's correct," said Laura Wall, executive director of Inter-Faith Housing Alliance, noting it was taken on the day of a snowstorm. "What you're not catching is someone without a permanent home who is sleeping on someone's couch, and we see a lot of people in that situation. . . . They're the invisible homeless."

So although the number of homeless people has maintained steady - a point-in-time count from 2009 put the Montgomery County total at 469 - what's changed is the type of person who now becomes homeless, advocates say. No longer is the population dominated by single men or women, many with substance-abuse or mental problems. Now there are more families with children, more people who have always worked for a living, more high achievers like Carter.

"You're realizing it could be anybody at this point," said Genny O'Donnell, director of the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center in Montgomery County. "Anybody. Something's broke. Badly."

The biggest problem in the suburbs is the lack of affordable housing, Wall said.

In Montgomery County, she notes, the average market-rate rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,070. A family would need to make more than $40,500 annually to be considered "stably housed," by not paying more than 30 percent of income on rent.

"That is out of the reach of nearly every family graduating from Inter-Faith's transitional-housing program," Wall said. "The problem is that a family in our program can do everything we ask them to . . . and still have no place they can afford to move to. We're seeing that as an increasing problem."

One new program in the county is the Homeless Prevention Center, where people in danger of homelessness can seek help.

"We're seeing a real jump in the number of people who are calling for rental and utility assistance," Wall said. "It's becoming more difficult for the people who have homes to keep those homes."

O'Donnell's 50-bed shelter serves single people, and she gets calls from all over the county - Norristown, Pottstown, even Bryn Mawr - as advocates seek beds for clients. What's gotten her attention is the number of former working professionals who find themselves with nowhere to turn.

"It's a sign that we have a person who came in who had worked for years as a therapist and got ill and lost his job and now he's with us," she said.

Wall, whose organization primarily works with single-parent households headed by women, said her families find themselves without shelter after a divorce, a layoff or a domestic-violence incident. One woman in her program went from a foreclosed-on three-bedroom house to an Inter-Faith apartment.

"It's traumatizing for the individuals," she said. "Moms feel like they failed their families, and it's frightening for them. We have a counselor work with our families and, over and over again, we hear that that's one of the most important services we offer."

In the 1980s, Diana Myers was Montgomery County's director of housing. When she'd approach the county commissioners with homeless issues, she'd always hear the same thing.

"They'd be like, 'Where are they? We don't see them,' " said Myers, president of the consulting firm Diana T. Myers and Associates, which works on homeless issues with 57 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. "In many cases, they're doubling up, sleeping in other people's homes."

That's what Carter did when she first lost her subsidized housing. She said it was an easy decision to keep her job and keep going to school for her master's degree in counseling.

"Anything else would be backpedaling," she said.

Carter has worked too hard in her life to get this far. The burns that almost killed her as a child have left serious physical scarring, including leaving her fingers as shortened nubs. She's dealt with the judgments of others who see her outer skin and don't get to know the person within.

And that person is a fighter, someone who gave a commencement speech when she graduated from Philadelphia's John Bartram High School, who continues to work and go to school full-time while raising her son.

"This is just a stepping-stone for me," Carter said.

Her son, she said, doesn't realize there's anything unusual about their lives.

"He doesn't know we're 'homeless,' " she said. "We're on a journey together."