The Coldest Winter

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lots. Others cram their kids and their possessions into a car or SUV and sleep on side streets or in friendly gas station lots for weeks at a time.

A census last January found 640 homeless people living in Ann Arbor. The number has grown by at least 30 percent since then, says Ellen Schulmeister, executive director of the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County. And the county office of community development estimates that thousands more are at imminent risk of losing their housing, more than half of them families with children. With the jobless rate in Ann Arbor approaching 10 percent, predicts Schulmeister, "we will see more people fall into homelessness."

The region currently has about 140 beds in shelters. To get ready for the winter, several groups are working on short-term solutions, from more temporary shelter beds in churches to developing an official tent city. The Shelter Association is collaborating with the city, the county, other nonprofits, and some churches to help people such as Mark Vincent Nadon, who's been sleeping outside or in his truck for almost two years.

Nadon, a regular at the daily St. Andrew's breakfast, tries in turn to help those who are newly homeless with advice and information. "They look just like everybody else," he says. "But they're in crisis, and they don't understand the options just yet." The tall blond man adds: "It's shameful--what's going on," referring to the September eviction of the tent city dubbed Camp Take Notice from a site behind Arborland.