TRAVERSE CITY -- Dee Atwood bought the van two years ago for $100, a perfect price because she didn't have much money and needed a way home after her old car's engine blew.
It's still running, sort of, so she and boyfriend Henry Lester can get from their hometown of Grayling to Traverse City and back whenever Lester picks up a few days' work through his temp agency.
And since the couple can't afford a motel, that van becomes their shelter.
"We're comfortable in the van down to about 20 degrees," said Atwood, who drove to town with Lester this week. "We didn't know it was going to be this cold."
"This cold" means single-digit and subzero lows of late, often compounded by even colder wind chills, and highs for most of January that failed to reach the freezing mark.
Atwood and Lester didn't spend a night in the car since their arrival in Traverse City on Sunday. Instead, they walked through the doors of Bay Pointe Community Church in Long Lake Township, part of the Safe Harbor shelter system.
Like others in the region, Safe Harbor -- a network of churches that opens its doors nightly to area homeless and others without shelter -- has been deluged with people needing to get out of the cold this month as temperatures dipped to dangerous levels.
Bay Pointe recorded 36 homeless people one night this week, the most so far this winter, said Julie Greene, who oversees the church's Safe Harbor program. The other days consistently have had participation in the 30s.
The program offers hot meals for dinner and breakfast, and closes during the day.
"It's heartbreaking," Greene said. "We've given them a warm place to sleep. We still cannot change the fact that they're homeless."
In January 2007, 815 people were considered homeless in Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim and Kalkaska counties, according to a point-in-time study by the Greater Grand Traverse Area Continuum of Care.
The organization was formed about 10 years ago to help attract federal grant dollars from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Counts are taken every two years to determine the homeless population during one 24-hour period. This year's survey was taken Wednesday, coordinator Cheryl Naperala said.
The 2007 data show 236 people in area shelters, 14 outdoors and 565 who were "precariously housed" -- living with friends or family or in motels.
A similar count also was taken in Manistee County.
Roughly 85 people have stayed at the Goodwill Inn in Garfield Township each night for about three weeks, above an average night when occupancy is in the 70s, operations manager Shawn Weber said.
The agency has encountered some overflow due to the weather and eviction, Weber said. Referrals are made to Safe Harbor and, when possible, vouchers are written for a few days' stay at a local hotel.
As of Wednesday, the temperature in Traverse City dropped below zero six days this month, reaching the lowest point -- 9 below -- on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
The warmest day, at 33 degrees, was Jan. 4 -- the only day thus far to reach the freezing point.
As a whole, January has been 5.6 degrees below normal.
Winter weather was part of the reason Manny Montalvo first came to Safe Harbor.
Montalvo moved to Michigan from Texas, where he had worked for decades, more than a year ago to stay with friends. When they were evicted, he slept in the woods until he heard about Safe Harbor from others in the program.
He thought being from Texas he could withstand the cold weather. Then it started to snow.
"It got cold one day, and I said, 'Okay, maybe I'll try it,'" Montalvo said.
Now he plays music and sings for the friends he has made at the churches. He wrote a melody to accompany a poem written by Don Rowland, who began staying at Safe Harbor in November.
The men say their respective creative outlets, along with the generosity of Safe Harbor staff and volunteers, help them survive -- especially in the harshest of winters.
"If we wanted to give up, we'd just lay in the snowbank," Rowland said. "We're not giving up."
