Trying to determine the number of homeless people in Boise is all but impossible, but shelter providers say they're full now and winter isn't even here yet.

"On average, we're seeing 10 newly homeless people a day," said the Rev. Bill Roscoe, executive director of Boise Rescue Mission, which operates two shelters in Boise and one in Nampa.

Part of the difficulty: Homeless people are mobile, and homelessness for many is temporary.

"They're not staying. If they did, they'd be in the rafters," Roscoe said. "It's bad, and it's getting worse, but to put a number to it, I can't do that."

Several have tried.

A lawsuit filed against the city in October claimed there were 2,000 to 4,500 homeless people in the city on any given night.

That's higher than a 2007 city estimate, which doesn't have a directly correlating number but determined 2,020 to 3,078 people experienced homelessness in Ada County in the course of a year, based on census data and poverty rates.

Another commonly used assumption is that about 1 percent of the population is homeless at any given time, said Jayne Sorrels, Interfaith Sanctuary shelter director. So for a population of 200,000, 2,000 people would be homeless.

And all of this ignores those who are never counted: people who are couch surfing or staying in motels or whose kids are staying with relatives.

One thing is certain: The number is growing with today's economy.

"We're filled to capacity in the morning and the afternoon," said Henry Krewer, mission coordinator for Corpus Christi House, a day shelter that is limited by fire code to 84 people at a time

"Our showers are constantly used," he said. "There is never a free washing machine."

Corpus Christi doesn't register people, so Krewer didn't know exactly how many are coming through, but 110 to 120 meals are served a day, he said.

"There is an increase. It's gradual, but it's constant," he said, noting that two or three new homeless people turn up each day.

SHELTERS ARE REACTING TO THE INCREASE

On Wednesday, the Rescue Mission is set to open a new 58-bed shelter on Jefferson Street across from City Light Home for Women and Children.

The mission also is adding 84 beds to its River of Life men's shelter on Front Street, Roscoe said.

With these additions, the city will have slightly more than 400 available beds among the Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army and Interfaith Sanctuary.

Not all the beds are available to just anyone.

The Salvation Army has nine beds for single women and 13 family rooms, said case manager Lindsay Klein. Interfaith Sanctuary has 150 beds for men, women and children, Sorrels said.

City Light Home for Women and Children has 35 beds. River of Life will have 176 beds for men in dorms, 26 beds for men in the recovery program and 36 beds for men in the job-search program, Roscoe said.

BUT EVEN MORE ARE SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR

Every night in Boise and Nampa, 330 to 340 people are housed in the Rescue Mission's three shelters, but not all of them are in beds. For the past couple of weeks, 40 people have been sleeping on the floor at City Light, Roscoe said.

In October, the mission served over 1,000 meals at its three facilities, 35 percent of them to women and children, he said.

Interfaith Sanctuary has been full or nearly full almost every day of the year, and the shelter has a waiting list, Sorrels said.

"When I say we're full, we've already filled the floor space," she said. "When the weather turned cold, we had an increase above that."

Last Thursday night, the waiting list for a place to sleep had 25 names.

Sanctuary also is the only shelter that takes intoxicated people. They used to sleep in an observation room separate from the rest of the population. When the flu season hit, the observation room became a quarantine for people with flu symptoms, Sorrels said.

People who were intoxicated went to overflow floor space, and the people on the floor who could went back into the main room, she said.

"It's a miracle every night," she said.

The Salvation Army operates a 90-day residential housing program in the North End. The larger rooms offer a chance for families without homes to stay together.

The program isn't set up for people to sleep on the floor, Klein said. This year, as home foreclosures boosted the first-time homeless, there has been up to a three-month wait for a bed.

Meanwhile, federal budget cuts have made it even more difficult for homeless people to transition into homes of their own - the wait list for Section 8 federal rental assistance has grown from 3,700 in February to 4,346 now, said Katie Kilgrow, housing programs manager with the Boise City/Ada County Housing Authority.

That's about a four-year wait.

Bethann Stewart: 377-6393