Homeless experts say the numbers will keep increasing unless the city gets to the root of the problem - a severe shortage of supportive housing for the mentally ill. Almost two-thirds of those living on the street have mental illness. But their numbers are not static. As people leave the streets, new ones arrive.
Homeless experts say what's needed is housing for those who are at highest risk of becoming homeless in the first place, particularly people with severe mental illness.
Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania expert on homelessness, said the city needed to add 2,000 units of permanent housing with services to help those with severe mental illness to live independently.
That's nearly double the number of available units. The additional housing could take many forms, such as scattered apartments that are subsidized or special residences for many people.
Culhane argues that taxpayers will pay for the chronically homeless one way or another, and that it is more cost effective and humane to provide long-term housing than emergency shelters and acute medical services.
Each person on the streets already costs Philadelphia about $10,000 a year in the form of time spent in shelters, emergency rooms, hospitals, detox centers, psychiatric units and jails.
Other cities, including New York, have shifted spending from shelters to permanent housing for this most vulnerable population, Culhane said.
"It would be less expensive in the long run to do it the right way," said Sister Mary Scullion, a longtime advocate for the homeless and cofounder of Project HOME, which provides housing and services to the homeless.
"Otherwise, it will be the same old thing, with the numbers going up and down."
Charlene and her bunker
The First Baptist Church sexton is worried about the woman in the bunker. With flurries in the morning, the afternoon temperature is falling fast.
By the makeshift shelter on Moravian Street, Lafayette Phillips kneels on the sidewalk and lifts a flap. "Hello? Hello?" he shouts into the darkness.
"I don't know where to begin to look for a person in here," he says.
Charlene lies on a mattress amid a jumble of blankets. Inside, it is dark, the air heavy and rank.
"What's your name?"
She looks up fleetingly and mumbles.
"What?" Phillips asks. "You don't feel like talking to me right now?"
He presses: "This isn't a good place to be building a house. You don't think it would be best if you went into a shelter?"
Nothing.
Phillips steps back. "Wow," he says, surveying the chaos. In just a day, the bunker has grown. It's now about eight feet long, four feet high, and as wide as the sidewalk. There are even more blankets, more plastic sheeting, more junk.
Phillips then checks on Monty, lifting up a blue tarp. He's not there.
Many mornings, the sexton will leave Monty a cup of coffee.
"What I don't want to see," Phillips says, "is lifting up the sheet and seeing someone deceased."
Two days later, Charlene has a seizure outside the Starbucks at 16th and Walnut.
Paramedics rush her to Pennsylvania Hospital for observation. She is later discharged to a shelter.
Days later, city workers come to Moravian Street with a truck and remove her bunker.
Tomorrow: A simple goal: Their own home.
