Tamaqua Salvation Army Major Sharon Whispell on Thursday offered five homeless people warm clothing, hot soup and a chance to be counted.

"We prepared for maybe 20, and I had expected maybe 10 to come in, if for nothing else but the meal," she said.But the low number didn't surprise Whispell."One of the things I've learned over the years is that a lot of people, when they're homeless, are hard to connect with. Sometimes they're embarrassed, or ashamed, so it didn't really surprise me in an overall sense," she said.Each year, Schuylkill County human services agencies tally the number of people who did not have a place of their own to sleep in as of Jan. 29.To do that, they get the word out among the homeless to visit a number of places, including the Salvation Army, so they can be counted.The information gathered in the one-day "point-in-time" count is given to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help determine the number and amount of federal grants the county gets to help its homeless.Information will continue to be gathered today, Saturday and Monday."We will have different groups out," Schuylkill County deputy county administrator for mental health Keith Semerod said.The groups include a soup kitchen and the Salvation Army in Pottsville, God's Chuck wagon a school bus converted into a rolling kitchen that covers Girardville, Mahanoy City, Ashland and those areas, a church in Cumbola and other locations.To encourage participation, the places offered a hot meal, warm clothing and information about how to get help."As far as picking a cold night, they did a pretty good job," Semerod said of Thursday's count.He anticipates having total numbers by the middle of next week.Schuylkill County doesn't have a homeless shelter. Instead, human services agencies help the homeless find emergency lodging in motels, and offer food vouchers.Because of the very nature of homelessness, it's tough to get a grasp on exactly how many people in the county have no place to call home. For the past two years, agencies have sent teams out into the streets to search for homeless people in abandoned buildings, in alleyways, and other spots.But social workers are hoping that by establishing rapport with key homeless people, they can spread the word person to person.Whispell and others are already thinking about next year's county, planning on a combination of street searches and inviting the homeless to come in to the Salvation Army and other places.Semerod said the fine-tuning is revealing more homeless each year."Each year, we've gotten better and better as far as learning where to look and who to talk to," he said.