WASHINGTON COUNTY — In Washington County, some homeless people live in the woods, others spend a night here and there in shelters. Some live in temporary housing provided by an agency.

Some hold full-time jobs, others work part time. Some are students.

No one knows for sure the extent of the homeless situation because part of that population is transient and many stay off the radar.

A report from the Community Action Council showed there were 201 families on the agency’s waiting list for housing at some point between September 2008 and August 2009.

Another survey, intended to provide a snapshot of the homeless situation at a specific point in time, was conducted Jan. 28 by a number of local agencies that work with homeless people.

That survey identified 93 homeless adults on that day. Of those, 55 were men, 36 were women and two did not list a gender. In addition, 46 children with an average age of 5 were identified on that day.

The Washington County Public Schools system had 244 homeless children during the 2008-09 school year, said Carol Costello, supervisor of alternative programs and student services. Of those, 103 were elementary students, 82 were middle school students and 59 were in high school, she said.

That was an increase over the number of homeless children in the system during the 2007-08 school year, when 148 children were identified as being homeless, Costello said.

“It’s not one particular part of the county,” Costello said. “There are folks in the rural areas experiencing a loss of housing, and in the more urban areas.”

During the last school year, there were homeless children in 32 of the county’s 46 school facilities, she said.

Figures were not yet available for the 2009-10 school year.

There are about 675,000 homeless people in the United States at any given time, according to figures provided by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. That’s only part of the picture, however. Each year, between 2.5 million and 3.5 million people experience at least one night of homelessness, National Alliance figures show.

In 2008 in Maryland, 6,054 people received shelter through homeless assistance programs, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Housing. Included in that number were 3,209 households without children and 879 households with children.

In Hagerstown, REACH, a nonprofit faith-based organization, works to prevent homelessness by helping people pay rent and utilities and by offering a cold weather shelter, said Jodie Stock, REACH’s executive director.

In fiscal year 2008, REACH served 1,800 people. By fiscal year 2009, the number had nearly tripled, to 5,300 served, Stock said.

Two groups

Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith said there are two groups of homeless people in the area.

“Especially with the economy bad now, we have some people who would not be homeless, but have fallen on hard times,” Smith said in April.

Those cases are pretty easy to handle, and help is available for them in Washington County, he said.

“They make a few phone calls, find out where to go, we don’t see them,” he said.

Smith describes those in the other group as “homeless by choice.”

“They are homeless because they like to be homeless ... These people don’t like rules,” he said.

Smith includes in this group inmates recently released from prison, people who suffer from mental illness and those with substance abuse problems.

Smith estimated that during the winter months, there are at least 100 such people in Hagerstown. The number decreases slightly in the summer, he said.

“During the winter, we try to keep them from freezing to death,” Smith said. Officers know where the shelters are and take people to them when necessary.

In December 2008, one man police described as homeless died of exposure. His body was found on an embankment about 30 yards from railroad tracks west of City Park.

Finding shelter

Some of those who live in the woods have elaborate setups.

They’ve built toilets, have solar showers and grills. Liquor bottles and beer cans litter a few of the sites. In others, empty water bottles are stashed in buckets and will be recycled. Some sites are nothing more than a pile of blankets over plastic garbage bags.

Some started camping in the woods after the REACH cold weather shelter closed in April.

The police department had been getting more calls than usual reporting homeless camps in the woods this summer, Smith said.

No violence or thefts had been associated recently with the homeless population, Smith said.

“We haven’t had any really serious issues for more than a year,” he said.

“Now, the complaints are more that they’re close to a business or house,” he said. “It’s lowering the quality of life to have a homeless camp behind your house.”

In such cases, officers ask the homeless to move along, Smith said.

Men also can stay at the Hagerstown Rescue Mission, although some choose not to because of rules they say the mission enforces, such as no drinking.

One 50-year-old man who stays at the mission said he grew up in Martinsburg, W.Va., has a high school education and for a while made his living writing for local publications. The man, who asked that his name not be published, admitted to emotional issues, but said he won’t take medication because he doesn’t like the side effects.

“I put my faith in God,” he said. “I have him to strengthen me.”

He works as a laborer and saves money.

“If you really want work, and are capable and healthy, you will find work,” he said.

Of the five families staying in the Community Action Council’s apartment shelters in September, three of them had at least one family member working, said Janet Cole of the council. The other families were looking for work; they are required to apply for three jobs per day while they’re staying in the shelter.

At St. John’s Family Shelter, three of four families had at least one family member working full time in April, said Joyce Chabot, president of the board for St. John’s. A fifth family that was being placed at St. John’s had one family member who had been employed full time at the same job for more than seven years, Chabot said.

By September, all five families at St. John’s shelter had at least one person working.

Members of a group from Lifehouse West church in Hagerstown do not wait for the homeless to come to them. The group goes into the woods, taking food and water and offering prayers to those they find there.

Pastor Justin Repp quotes Mother Teresa when explaining why they make the weekly mission to the homeless: “We get the chance to start a dialogue with them. It gives them the sense they’re not these subhuman creatures that live out in the woods. They’re human beings with dignity.”

Walking, looking for work hardest about being homeless

Last winter, Alice Shorday was living in a wooded area in Hagerstown, a place she’s called home “on and off” for three years.

Shorday, 43, who agreed to be interviewed but did not want her picture taken, said homelessness wasn’t new to her.

“Growing up, I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from day to day,” she said.

Her father died when he was 28, and her mother was never around, said Shorday, who grew up near Philadelphia and has lived in Hagerstown for 15 years.

Shorday received disability payments for several years and was fighting to get those back.

“I love to work, don’t get me wrong,” she said, “There are only certain jobs I can do.”

She said she has cleaned houses, worked as a nursing assistant, flagged at construction sites and was at one point a licensed cosmetologist.

Standing in the woods, she pulled off her heavy socks and shoes to reveal a pedicure she had given herself — purple nails with white tips.

For Shorday, walking a lot and trying to find work are the hardest things about being homeless. She had to put together the paperwork necessary for job applications while living in the woods, and submitted job applications even when she had no telephone.

Shorday said she was in an abusive relationship for five years. She left that relationship and ended up in jail on a DUI about five years ago. After she was released, she said she had nowhere to go and couldn’t pay the bills.

She worked off and on, sometimes cutting people’s hair and sometimes flagging for construction companies.

Then, it became harder to find work. She applied for jobs, but wasn’t hired, she said.

Last winter, she lived in the woods with a man she considered to be her husband.

Living in the woods was “somewhat” of a choice, Shorday said.

She was doing a lot of writing, including poetry, to pass the time.

On Easter Sunday, she went to church at Lifehouse West at 1028 Salem Ave. Members of the congregation doing outreach with area homeless people invited her to join them.

“There are a lot of beautiful people out there that help us,” Shorday said.

Tent city residents share, protect each other

Hundreds of beer and liquor bottles, a black duffel bag hanging from a tree, the remnants of a fire.

On a rainy April afternoon, these are among the signs that some people make their homes in the woods in an area of Hagerstown.

A pair of boxer shorts can be seen in a heap of bottles. A cell phone was left in the dirt and is soaking wet.

Volunteers from a local church, Lifehouse West on Salem Avenue, trudge through these trees every week, searching for anyone who needs help.

The location of the campsite is not being published to protect those who make their homes there.

The volunteers hear a voice from a tent that is nearly hidden from view beneath a brown tarp.

“That was cool,” said the voice, referring to a sandwich and snack cakes the volunteers left at his tent the week before.

The man, Klaus Kneeland, said he slept during the day, and worked third shift, cleaning.

“I’m working my way out of this mess,” said Kneeland, who didn’t want to come out of the tent, but agreed to answer a reporter’s questions.

Kneeland said he had been living in the same spot for two years. He has a friend who lives on West Washington Street, where he showers. He tried staying at REACH’s cold weather shelter, but said he couldn’t sleep in a room with 50 noisy men.

“Out here, you can hear the birds,” he said.

Kneeland has concocted a fairly elaborate campsite — tent, coolers, clothesline. He even erected a small sign bearing one word: “Hope.”

Pastor Justin Repp prayed with Kneeland before moving on to other sites.

Others in the woods in April didn’t have as much as Kneeland did.

One campsite consisted of nothing more than blankets piled on garbage bags. On one visit to the site, a rain-soaked pillow was nearby.

Elsewhere, four people made their home at a spot where they had lived for about three years.

One of them, Ronald Robinson, 55, said he worked for a construction company in Florida for about 6 1/2 years before being laid off. He said he tried unsuccessfully to get a job and then came to Hagerstown because he was originally from Maryland and has family in the area.

Two men living at the camp did not want to be identified. The fourth occupant was a woman named Alice Shorday.

Robinson gave a visitor a tour of their campsite, proudly pointing out some of the improvements they had made.

Pots and pans were suspended from a tree. There was a fire pit, a clothesline and even a bathroom constructed from tarps and a bucket.

A solar shower got the water reasonably warm if it was in the sun for a few hours, Robinson said.

They got drinking water from a spigot at City Park.

Robinson also collected water that dripped from a vine, noting that it is sweet and good in coffee.

Inside the tent was a couch that Robinson said he found abandoned and hauled half a mile from the train tracks.

He had arranged wire shelves to hold his jar of coffee, cans of beer, a jar of pickles and a container of fabric refresher, among other items.

Robinson’s radio was hooked up to a car battery and he had an $80 propane stove. On this day, he was out of propane.

The group sometimes would collect morel mushrooms from the woods and fry them.

Shorday, one of the few women living in the woods at the time, had arranged clusters of Christmas candles near the base of a tree.

An American flag was next to a Confederate flag on another tree.

They collected items by shopping at yard sales, where they find things they can afford.

Sharing with others

On an April day, the four offered candlesticks to the Lifehouse West church members visiting their site. They had bought extra candles at a yard sale, someone said. One of the men also offered spare blankets “if anyone needs them.”

“If we have extra, we’ll give it,” the man said.

Why give when they have so little?

“We live in the woods every day, we get blessed every day,” he said.

But all is not blissful in the woods.

One of the four always stayed at the campsite to protect it against intruders.

A noose was suspended from a tree near one of the tents. It keeps people away, they said.

They might have had reason to be concerned.

Michael Petry, who lived in another wooded area in Hagerstown, talked about “tent wars” during an April interview at the Washington County Free Library in downtown Hagerstown. His friend, 44-year-old Peter Allen Keyser, said the homeless steal from other homeless.

In September 2008, he and Petry had two new tents side by side, Keyser said.

Someone burned down one of the tents. Two weeks later, the other tent and a queen-sized mattress also were set afire.

“We can’t do anything,” Keyser said. “Don’t want to start no tent wars.”

Petry said family pictures from his former home in Pennsylvania were destroyed in the fire.

“The nicer you are, the more they take advantage,” Petry said. “They mistake kindness for weakness.”

The men said they were willing to share what they have.

“If you need something, just ask,” Petry said.

By Petry’s estimate, the number of homeless people living in tents around Hagerstown had at least doubled in the past two years.

Petry estimated that in the spring, between 75 and 100 people were living in tents around town. Hagerstown Police Chief Art Smith has said 100 was a conservative estimate.

Homeless or free?

No one chooses the homeless life, said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless based in Washington, D.C.

Over the years, Stoops said, he’s come across a few people who say they choose to be homeless because they like the freedom.

“No one in their right mind would choose to be homeless,” Stoops said. “They long for a family again.”

He noted the average age of death of homeless people is 50.

Stoops said he believes the chronically homeless have given up on themselves and lack goals beyond finding a place to sleep each night.

It’s men who usually end up in the woods; women and children tend to be pretty well taken care of, some of the homeless men said.

Petry and Keyser said they pick up odd jobs here and there, and share with each other when they have money.

“These people out there are no different than anybody else,” Petry said. “They just have nowhere to go.”

He picks up that theme later.

“The people in the woods are harmless. All we want to do is find somewhere to live. We’re just there and we’re surviving. We don’t steal nothing, don’t put nobody down,” he said. “We’re not disrespectful. Well, most of us.”

How to give or receive help

Those who would like to help the homeless by volunteering their time or donating money or materials, or those who need assistance, may contact one of the following organizations.

• CASA (Citizens Assisting and Sheltering the Abused), 116 W. Baltimore St., Hagerstown; 301-739-4990; 24-hour hot line at 301-739-8975; www.casainc.org; e-mail to casa5@myactv.net — Provides counseling, crisis intervention and shelter to individuals and families involved in domestic violence situations, among other programs.

• Hope Center at Hagerstown Rescue Mission, 125 N. Prospect St., Hagerstown; 301-739-1165 — Offers transitional housing and emergency shelter for men, meals and food, clothing and counseling, which includes a 13-month program for life recovery.

• Interfaith Service Coalition, 116 W. High St., Hancock; 301-678-6605; www.hancockmaryland.com/InterfaithServiceCoalition.htm — Works to assist those in need with food, nutrition education, literacy training, shelter and clothing. Serves people within a 15-mile radius of Hancock.

• Lifehouse West — Call Carl Booker at 240-291-2648 or contact the church through its Web site at www.lhwest.org.

• Washington County Community Action Council, 101 Summit Ave., Hagerstown; 301-797-4161; www.wccac.org — Helps low-income residents of Washington County become self-sufficient.

• REACH Caregivers, 140 W. Franklin St., Suite 300, Hagerstown; 301-733-2371; www.reachcaregivers.org — Faith-based, nonprofit organization that works to fill unmet needs with volunteers and community donations. Provides emergency motel placements, food and utility assistance, and runs a church-based cold weather shelter.

• St. John’s Shelter, 14-16 Randolph Ave., Hagerstown; 301-791-9411 — Offers emergency shelter for families, cooking facilities, counseling and more.

• Salvation Army, 534 W. Franklin St., Hagerstown; 301-733-2440 — Provides emergency and transitional shelter, meals and counseling.

• Washington County Mental Health Authority Inc., 339 E. Antietam St., Suite 5, Hagerstown; 301-739-2490; www.wcmha.org — Works to improve the quality of life for those with mental illness

• Washington County Department of Social Services, 122 N. Potomac St., Hagerstown; 240-420-2100; www.dhr.state.md.us/washington.htm — Assists people in economic need.