MOSES LAKE - Ray Kitzke moved to Moses Lake two years ago for a job he lost a few months later to seasonal layoffs.

At the time Kitzke thought it was no big deal. The city had plenty of other job openings and he quickly landed part time work as a chef in a couple of restaurants and a hotel. But then a string of circumstances, including a bout of influenza and a clash with an employer, left him unemployed and unable to pay his rent.

That winter, at age 56, Kitzke found himself sleeping in a car borrowed from a friend.

He's still there.

While he's since managed to find part-time work as a personal chef, Kitzke says his situation makes it nearly impossible to secure steady employment.

"When you're homeless and you're making a little amount of money and you don't have mom and dad to fall back on, that means you can't take baths all the time, you have no place to look in the mirror to shave, you can't take care of your clothing because it has to be rolled up and stuffed in a bag every day," Kitzke says. "You always look like you were sleeping in your clothes. Do you want that person as an employee, representing your company looking like he just came out a homeless camp?"

Kitzke is far from alone in his predicament.

Peny Archer, the operations manager of Community Services of Moses Lake, says the growing number of homeless people she meets through the food bank came to town looking for jobs that for whatever reason didn't pan out.

"What I've seen is 10 people coming here for every one job available," she says. "A year, year and a half ago we'd maybe see two (homeless people) a month come into the food bank. Now we see six to 10 families a day."

An annual count conducted in Jan. 2011 revealed 153 homeless people living in Grant County, according to the Washington State Department of Commerce.

Archer believes that's a lowball number.

"I think that could be about half of them," she says. "Homelessness is a silently growing problem. People don't see them and they don't want to be seen. They shield themselves from authority because they're scared or they're embarrassed; sometimes an untreated mental illness figures in."

The stigma of homelessness keeps the homeless out of sight and living in orchards, among sand dunes, in ditches and along the beach, Archer says. She mentions 33 transient families who are living in a tent city just outside of town, and one woman she knows who has been camping year-round for the past two years.

Archer says some food bank regulars are one fatal step away from losing their homes, such as elderly people who have seen a cut to their benefits or the working poor.

"They're living paycheck to paycheck on 10 bucks an hour, trying to raise a family. An injury, a job loss or a home foreclosure can send them over the edge," she says. "We need to take care of this problem. I don't know how, but these are our neighbors."

"The city could definitely use a shelter, especially for men," says Cleo Stevens, who helps run a weekly soup kitchen at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Moses Lake. "Nothing fancy, just a place they could stay overnight to get warm."

Stevens says she knows of at least one church that tried to start a shelter in their parish basement, but the idea was quickly quashed due to zoning restrictions.

Our Lady of Fatima has showers available for the homeless for a few hours each Thursday, as well as clean clothing, blankets and a basin for shaving, but Stevens says more is needed.

She points to the preponderance of long-vacant buildings in the city, such as the former Kmart store on North Stratford Road, and asks why one of them can't be taken over for the homeless.

"My dream is to get all the churches in town to get together and make two sides there - one for men, one for women - with showers, food and beds," she says, admitting the cost of such an undertaking would probably be too great for her dream to ever be realized.

Archer also says Moses Lake could use a homeless shelter, especially during the cold winter months.

A few agencies, such as the Salvation Army or the Moses Lake Police Department, provide one time, overnight lodgings for the homeless, but Archer says the need simply returns every 24 hours.

"It gets to be 10 below here," she says. "Some of them are lucky enough to spend some time on their friend's couch or in a trailer in the backyard, but this isn't just single guys - these are families with kids."

Some homeless people move on in the winter to cities with shelters, but Kitzke says it's often not so simple.

"You can't make the move because you don't have the money to make the move, and if somebody offers to move you, you still have issues with paying off bills," he says. "I can't pay off my phone bill because I don't have a job, and every time I have a few bucks I have to put gasoline in that car, pay my share of the auto insurance and buy things like toothpaste and other stuff they don't give away at the food bank."

There are several agencies in the Moses Lake area to help homeless women, especially mothers with children, but Kitzke perceives a gap in services for men, many of whom are disabled veterans like himself.

"There are more homeless who have served their country than these people who give lip service to being a patriot realize," he says. "It doesn't take them supporting anybody. All it really takes is recognition."

Stevens, Archer and hundreds of other local residents who do recognize the problem are working to find solutions.

One Christian-based non-profit, Serve Moses Lake, has assisted nearly 2,000 homeless clients with shelter, food, clothing and other needs, according to their website. The organization directs clients to service agencies and partners with a network of 27 area churches that provide financial support, food assistance and volunteer help.

Other residents are coming up with ways to help on their own, such as Dawn Prince, who is leading her fellow Ephrata Foursquare Church members in collecting coats, toiletries and other items for 200 "homeless kits," which will be distributed on Christmas Eve in Ephrata and Moses Lake.

"It started with a small group, spread to the entire church and now we're hoping it grows into a community event," she said; adding the group would like to have enough items to provide outlying communities with homeless donations as well. "The problem of homelessness may not easily be seen, but it's everywhere."

In the past two years, Kitzke says he's become well accustomed to that reality. He's met drug addicts, young families and veterans - all struggling to get by.

He says he knows one woman who crawls under a building to sleep every night and deliberately makes herself "look like hell" so she doesn't get harassed or worse. Another woman recently broke down in tears and hugged him after he gave her children a handful of protein bars, he says.

"I though I might have one in the glove box. I prayed all the way to the car and found half a dozen where there was only one," Kitzke says through tears. "I was raised to be a good, moral, Christian child, and to see other people homeless tears my heart out. If there was something I could do to help them, I would do it."

For more information about Serve Moses Lake, call 509-764-8276 or visit www.servemoseslake.org. More on Community Services of Moses Lake and the food bank can be found at www.mlfood.org.

People interested in donating to Prince's "homeless kit" project can call 509-754-5205.