With the weather getting colder as winter sets in, homeless people across the heartland are seeking help.

Vic Moss, director of the Emergency Residence Project and chairman of the Story County Housing Coordinating Board, said the Emergency Residence Project helped more than 2,000 people last year.

He estimates there are at least 100 homeless people in Ames at a given time, but said it is hard to come up with an exact number.

“We’ve been getting busier every year,” Moss said.

He said the ERP does not have the funding or capacity to help more people because of the large increase.

The ERP offers three services. The first service is emergency homeless shelters for homeless men and homeless women. The men’s shelter can hold 11 men, and the women’s shelter can hold two families or six single women.

The second service the ERP offers is transitional housing for up to six families for as long as a year.

ERP also offers a homeless prevention program designed to keep families from losing homes.

Moss said although prosperity is increasing, poverty is also on the rise.

“For every person that’s homeless, there’s at least 10 people that are living so close to the edge [that] their quality of life is almost nothing,” Moss said.

There are three other shelters in Ames including the Rosedale Shelter, for youth; The Lighthouse, for single women; and the Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support, for single women.

Tami Wirth, ACCESS shelter coordinator, said domestic violence is about control and can erode support for women in abusive relationships.

“Leaving a relationship is not just an event – it’s a process,” Wirth said.

ACCESS and similar shelters offer places for women in abusive relationships to go when they are not able to go anywhere else. The shelter can help with moving out, finding work and getting away from an abusive partner.