From The Baltimore Sun

City's homeless get frozen out
Shelter closings force people onto streets

By Lynn Anderson | Sun reporter
December 6, 2007

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.

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