HITTING STREETS TO TALLY HOMELESS

An army of volunteers spent Tuesday peeking into freezing, vacant buildings and driving vans into the desolate spaces below the highways that cross through Camden, searching for the city's homeless communities.

They found families, young people, and drug addicts, some living under tarpaulins or without shelter. By the day's end, the hope was that some might be on their way to finding places to live.

Camden was one of many cities nationwide to conduct a "Point in Time" count Tuesday, a census that measures an area's homeless population over the course of one day. Officials in Philadelphia, including Mayor Kenney, held a similar count.

Last year, officials counted 611 homeless people in Camden County. In Philadelphia, the 2015 count was 3,327. Advocates say those figures may not count scores of others who live with friends or do not admit to homelessness.

Mary, a 38-year-old woman who did not want to give her last name, said she had been homeless in Camden for about two years. Sometimes she stays with friends, she said, but drugs keep drawing her back to the streets. On Tuesday she accepted a meal from the volunteers working at Joseph's House of Camden.

"Some days I think I can get things right," she said. "But it hasn't worked out for me."

With shelters reporting clients through databases, and local agencies and volunteers scouring the counties, homeless advocates track people down and ask about financial resources, substance abuse, family, and military service.

Shantel Garner, a systems analyst and project specialist for the Pennsauken-based Community Planning and Advocacy Council, which organized the event, said Tuesday that the biggest obstacle to helping some homeless individuals is occasionally lacking the resources to get them into rehab, or a shelter, right away.

"The hardest thing is not being able to get someone the services they need right away," she said. "Having someone who needs help, and we can't get them that."

Gail Freeman sat at a nearby table, handing out ziplock bags with clean socks and toiletries. Freeman was there representing her nonprofit group, Just Us Girls, which donates supplies to the homeless and works with other nonprofits on providing job training and more to women in need.

"I think some people are just comfortable where they are," she said. "Not having responsibility, not having accountability. It takes a lot of work to make that change."

A decade ago, Freeman was living on the Camden waterfront, eating scraps from trash cans and chasing drugs. Things shifted when she learned about a program that provided clothes and showers to people like her. She went and asked for help. She got into a shelter, then an apartment, with help from a rent-assistance program. She got clean in 2009 and now lives in Pine Hill.

"When I go out with volunteers to talk to people, I always say 'I used to sleep out here with you,' " she said. "I'm always looking for that person who really wants another life."

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