By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 9, 2010; B01
For Gala Crum, home is a $259 tent pitched in a frozen patch of woods near the Potomac Mills shopping mall in Prince William County.
Under a gray sky, the 21-year-old explained why she and her boyfriend have been sleeping outdoors in the bone-chilling cold, even after learning that she's pregnant. "I can survive out here," she declared, frost puffing from her mouth.
With her tangled brown hair, marblelike brownish-green eyes and smooth girlish features, Crum is a face of the homeless that Washington area residents rarely see. Her vinyl tent is hidden behind a clump of trees near Interstate 95, in an area where five other tents have been pitched by homeless campers. She and her boyfriend remained huddled in their tent even as snow fell early Friday and temperatures dropped to the 20s.
Local officials say there might be scores of tents used by the homeless, scattered along highways and nearby wooded areas. Human services workers didn't group the 1,283 unsheltered people they found into categories such as individuals sleeping on benches, living in cars or camping in tents when they conducted the 2009 Count of Homeless Persons in Shelters and on the Streets for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The total number of homeless in the region was 12,035.
The majority aren't living in tents because shelters won't accept them, said advocates for the homeless. They are frequently rugged loners who would rather sleep outdoors when it's freezing than abide by the strict rules of shelters: 9 p.m. curfews, 7 a.m. wake-up calls and alcohol bans backed by breathalyzer tests.
"The tent thing is a suburban thing" for homeless people who'd rather go it alone, said Pam Michell, executive director of New Hope Housing in Fairfax County. "It's the equivalent of the steam grate and the abandoned building in the city where the homeless sleep."
Advocates who monitor the homeless say tent dwellers often have a drug or alcohol addiction or mental health issues. As local officials prepare to conduct the 2010 homeless census Jan. 27, workers are roaming the woods and trying to build relationships with campers by offering them health care and food, and reminding them that they are welcome in government-funded shelters.
"Living in the woods is a lot harder than living anywhere else," Michell said. "You get a lot older a lot faster. It damages your teeth, your skin. It affects your blood pressure. You get respiratory illnesses. We thought our outreach challenge would be mental health issues when we encountered people in tents. It was health issues."
Crum, who works 20 hours a week as a mess hall lunch server at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, said a full-time job with benefits would allow her and her boyfriend, Thomas Ardis Jr., 27, to leave their tent and get an apartment.
Last month, Crum was given a strong incentive to succeed. During a hospital visit for nausea, she discovered that she's pregnant. It was jarring news, but she vowed to keep the baby.
"I was raised in foster homes, and I don't want what happened to me to happen to him," she said.
They also weren't fond of the unemployed Ardis, who's been charged with a string of misdemeanors for crimes such as petty larceny, failing to return rental property and disorderly conduct, according to court records. Wherever Crum went, Ardis was not far behind.
After two nights in a Prince William County shelter, where "one woman had really bad hygiene," Crum left disgusted and didn't go back. She moved into a tattered tent she owned.
When the tent fell apart, Crum bought another three months ago at a Dick's Sporting Goods store. She and Ardis pitched it in August beside a wooded trail that ends at the door of the winter shelter in Woodbridge.
When last month's storm dumped nearly two feet of snow on the area, Crum and Ardis abandoned the tent for a motel room but returned a day later.
On a recent afternoon, Crum huddled fully clothed in a sleeping bag, with Ardis nearby. Nick Hagler, who camped in a nearby tent before moving to permanent housing earlier in the year, stopped by for a visit.
"Hurry up and come in," Ardis shouted when Hagler, 26, unzipped the tent. "You're letting cold air in here!"
The floor was covered with clothing that could catch fire if the propane heater tipped. "I only turn it on at night," Crum said. "I turn it off before I fall asleep so it won't tip over and catch on fire."
No matter how cold it gets, police and other officials said they have no authority to forcibly take Crum or any other camper to a shelter, hospital or jail unless they are violating the law. "If a property owner asks us to remove them, we will," a spokeswoman for the Prince William police said. A D.C. government human services official said only a qualified psychologist can recommend removing a homeless person from the street against his or her will.
Gayle Sanders, director of the Hilda M. Barg Homeless Prevention Shelter in Woodbridge, about a mile away from Crum's encampment, said she and other women living in tents or on the street are welcome at the shelter.
But the shelter has strict rules, Sanders said. Boyfriends aren't allowed, and women can't grant them favors, such as washing their clothes. Hilda M. Barg is a family shelter, so women with possible physical and mental health disorders are restricted to certain areas so that they don't come into contact with children.
Crum's response to shelter living was nearly the same as the answer she gave to her worried parents the last time they talked. "They're, like, asking me to come home," she said. "I told them, 'No, we can make it out here.' "
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