Every year, people who serve the homeless compete for thinning state and federal dollars while costs and demand for services rise. They also get blamed by homeowners for the homeless who sleep in neighborhood streets and parks.

The visibly homeless are a minority of Allegheny County's 2,100-plus homeless population, but they are a major focus of the county's 10-year plan to end homelessness. A big reason is that when outreach works, the chronically homeless do well in the permanent housing model the federal government favors.

In the past two years, 220 people have exchanged their "chronic homeless" tag for apartments or private rooms throughout Allegheny County. Federal and foundation funding is paying for a portion of rents and in-apartment rehabilitation services.

Mac McMahon spent two years assembling one man's documents, including identification, to move him from a makeshift bed in a cranny under an interstate on the North Shore and into a senior high-rise.

One recent evening when Mr. McMahon, director of homeless assistance for Community Human Services, was a panelist at a rancorous meeting of North Side residents, he announced his success.

"It had happened that day," he said. "At one point I thought, hey, I can tell people something good that happened."

The county is two years into its plan. Last fall's two-year update reported a noticeable shift toward permanent housing for the chronic homeless.

Getting people into housing and bringing them support services -- the Housing First model -- costs hundreds of thousands less than the current bounce from shelter to street to jail to shelter to emergency room to street that most chronically homeless endure, said Philip Mangano, director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

The number of housing sites is growing. A local leader in the effort, Mercy Behavioral Health's Operation Safety Net, is soon to add 45 scattered-site apartments to the 20 it now oversees.

Mr. McMahon's client wanted to get off the streets, but chose to sleep out in the cold rather than go to a shelter.

The chronically homeless typically resist shelters, most of which require sobriety to get in, along with some religious framing. Dr. Jim Withers of Operation Safety Net has called the street homeless "a different breed, like hunter-gatherers" who resist being herded and put under the thumb.

They bed down in a cranny of the park instead, or the doorway of a vacant storefront. And when they amble, disheveled, past joggers and stroller-pushers, they become perceived threats to safety and property values.

This fear was expressed at the packed-house meeting at the New Hazlett Theater, where several in the audience lamented the North Side's overabundance of homeless services.

"I travel all over the county, and everywhere I go, people say, 'We have the most homeless,'" said Jane Miller, director of communications at Mercy Behavioral Health.

While the tiny Central North Side has two large contingents of homeless two blocks apart at the Light of Life Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army drop-in center, Downtown has the most street homeless, and East End neighborhoods and Uptown have the most homeless service agencies.

The bulk of all their clients are people in long-term shelters, treatment centers and transitional housing being rehabilitated and trained to work, said Jennifer Williams, director of Health Care for the Homeless Inc.

The 10-year plan's other big effort on behalf of the chronically homeless is an engagement network to coordinate the work of outreach teams with case management and eventual housing. The street-level entry points include five drop-in centers.

Operation Safety Net is overseeing the process. The drop-in sites are the East End Cooperative Ministry in East Liberty, Miryam's and WellSpring in Uptown, the Salvation Army on the North Side, and Shepherd's Heart in Uptown.

Within 18 months, the Salvation Army's drop-in center will close, leaving between 80 to 100 daily clients looking for breakfast, showers, laundry, counseling, medical and psychiatric care, dental referrals, medical assistance applications and housing information.

Ms. Williams, whose agency provides services there, said that location has been the most successful in the county because of its size as a one-stop shop.

The Salvation Army's James LaBossiere said a study in 2006-07 "affirmed our need to offer services beyond homeless services" and that programs for youth among them are "incompatible in the same location."

"We are committed to serving the homeless and are working very hard to find the next step, in partnership with other providers," he said.

Ms. Miller told the assembly of North Side residents to put pressure on their elected officials if they want a solution to the chronic homelessness in the neighborhoods.

"The governor's budget came out at the first of February, and as they're closing state hospitals, they are not providing cost-of-living allowances for the providers there are," she said. "Ask the governor and your senators and congressmen, 'Why are you cutting funds to providers?' "

When resident Randy Zotter described the neighborhood's frustration with drunks urinating in public and demonstrating mental instabilities, he asked the panel, "How much more are we expected to take?"

"We're being asked to do more with less," said Ms. Miller, "so we're asking the same question."