Ruth Williams, 66, leads a visitor to the tarp shanty she calls home and says, "Mine is the third castle."

Cane in hand, Williams hobbles across a JFX off-ramp to reach her flimsy shelter. Cars zip by as she plops down in a wheelchair. Nearby, a man who also lives under a tarpaulin uses cast-off construction materials and a lighter to start a small blaze in a metal barrel.

Last night as the temperature dropped and a thin layer of snow lay on the ground, roughly 3,000 homeless people were on Baltimore's streets and in its shelters, according to city health officials. Winter's sting coincided with the recent closures of four large shelters that caused tarp cities - congregations of men, women and couples - to sprout up under freeways and bridges and behind office buildings.

And as the city struggles to get its winter shelter up and running, advocates say they worry about those left out in the cold.

The most recent closing came Monday, when workers boarded up the Oasis Center, a downtown shelter that provided beds and showers to more than 100 men and women daily, according to the center's director. Last month, Brown's Community Outreach Inc., a shelter that housed nearly 60 adults and children each night, closed with little warning.

All told, the city faces a deficit of nearly 300 shelter beds, according to outreach workers, at a time of year when temperatures can be dangerously brisk. The city's winter shelter opened at its new location in the 1600 block of Guilford Ave. on Friday night, but crews were scurrying this week to make it fully functional, according to city officials.

"The winter shelter was housing about 320 people a night last year, and that was when all the other [four] shelters were operating," said Kevin Lindamood, vice president for external affairs at Health Care for the Homeless in Baltimore. "This year, it's as if the opening of the winter shelter is simply going to replace the beds we lost ... and that's not going to be sufficient."

Since the 1980s, the number of homeless people has grown, partly because of the dwindling stock of affordable housing and the closure of state mental hospitals, advocates for the homeless say.

Nationwide, from Los Angeles to Miami to Baltimore, 744,313 people were homeless in 2005, the most recent year for which data were available, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. About 44 percent did not stay in shelters and were labeled "chronically homeless," a definition that includes people suffering from mental illness, substance abuse and other disabilities.

It is the chronically homeless who are the hardest to work with, advocates say. Many refuse to stay in shelters and have behavior problems. Homelessness is not just a Baltimore problem; affluent jurisdictions such as Montgomery County wrestle with it.

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is working with many cities, including Baltimore, to create 10-year plans to end homelessness.

A key part of the strategy involves getting people into permanent housing and then providing them with counseling, health services and jobs.

During Mayor Sheila Dixon's inaugural address Tuesday, she vowed to do more for the homeless. The city's 10-year plan is near completion, and to show that she is serious about seeing results, Dixon said she is moving the Homeless Services Division from the Health Department to the mayor's office.

"We are really focused on the encampments," said Diane Glauber, the head of the city's Homeless Services Division. "It's not hygienic. No one should have to live in a park. We can't force anyone into a shelter, but we could come up with some other strategies. ... Our goal and our plan is to have more permanent housing options available."

The city is also looking at opening a permanent shelter, one that would provide visitors with more than a shower and a cot, including medical aid, counseling, education and job training. The winter shelter at Guilford Avenue will provide such services, said Linda Boyer, the executive director of Jobs Housing Recovery, which is managing the shelter for the city this year.

"Stability is really an issue, and that's what we are trying to offer," said Boyer as she guided a visitor around the winter shelter, which is in an old elementary school near the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. "When they come in the door, we want to say, 'Welcome, we'll do whatever we can to help.'"

The current shelter deficit occurred with little warning and is not entirely economic.

In October, when the YWCA closed its shelter for women and children, officials said they wanted to change the focus of the organization from housing to job training and financial skills. Although the then-acting director said that a dip in grant money played a significant role, it was not the only reason for the shuttering of the residence at 128 W. Franklin St.

When Brown's Community Outreach Inc. closed its shelter in Pimlico last month, it took many by surprise, including the shelter's director, who said he didn't find out about his landlord's decision to end shelter operations until about 10 days before the closing. Director Gary Matthews said he is looking for another site where he can reopen the shelter but has not found a suitable place. Many former clients have had to find other accommodations - and fast.

"We didn't turn no one away," Matthews said of the shelter, which closed Nov. 23. "Now, I don't know where they are going to go. God forbid they end up on the streets."

Telephone calls to Brown Memorial Church, the landlord of the West Belvedere Avenue shelter, were not returned.

The Oasis Center closed because of political and development pressures. It is across the street from the Juvenile Justice Center and within blocks of City Hall. Neighboring business owners had complained about men and women standing around outside the shelter, which was the only facility in the city that took in those under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Another shelter, I Can Inc., closed in March.

As a result of these closures, other shelters are feeling the strain.

At Karis Home, a shelter for women and children on East Baltimore Street, staff members have been receiving telephone calls from former residents who are looking to return because they were forced out of other facilities, said Director Tory Bryant. She said that when she heard that Brown's Community Outreach was closing, she got in touch with several women to make sure they had a place to go.

"Homelessness is a known problem," said Bryant. "What will the city do?"

During a recent meeting at Beans and Bread, a soup kitchen and shelter run by St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore, homeless people and advocates met to discuss ways to organize those without shelter as well as their supporters. Other meetings will be held in the weeks to come.

"It's unclear to me at this point how the city is going to address the erosion of shelter resources," said Adam Schneider, an outreach worker at Health Care for the Homeless and member of Project Jump Start, a group that staged a "sleep-out" last month to raise awareness of homelessness in the city. "Across the board, city resources are stretched thin. Everyone that spends any time downtown is recognizing that there are a lot more people on the street."

For those on the street, such as Ruth Williams and the others who live at the encampment on Guilford Avenue under the Jones Falls Expressway, the recent drop in temperature has made daily existence more difficult. However, it has not forced them inside.

Many say they prefer living in tarp and pallet-board shanties to shelters, where, they say, their belongings could be stolen and their dignity dashed by intake workers who treat them like garbage. Then again, even if they wanted to sleep indoors, there are fewer options, said a man who said he had moved to Baltimore this year. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.

"All these places that people told us to go are gone," he said.

lynn.anderson@baltsun.com