They push shopping carts filled with all of their worldly possessions down the street.

Sometimes you can find them sleeping in doorways or in alleys behind power poles with Toters serving as a shield. They sometimes hop from vacant houses to abandoned buildings.

They are the city’s most invisible residents — the homeless who call Manteca home.

And while some cities up and down the valley have homeless shelters that are handing out extra warm clothes to protect the least fortunate against the below-freezing overnight temperatures expected to hit next week, there is no such option in Manteca.

Police Chief Nick Obligacion — designated as Manteca’s pointman by City Manager Karen McLaughlin to address both crime caused by the homeless as well as to find ways to help those that want help — believes it is critical to find out just how many homeless call Manteca home.

It is why his officers are going to join next month’s effort to count the homeless.

There is $3.5 million at stake for San Joaquin County in federal funds to assist the homeless that the count is crucial to preserving. Similar counts will take place in Lodi, Tracy, and St. Mary’s Interfaith Center in Stockton.

Obligacion noted the annual national point-in-time homeless count is not just critical for preserving funds, but if Manteca has been undercounted in the past, it might help secure additional federal funding.

“Even though the money won’t go toward services based in Manteca, a lot of the homeless in Manteca make use of the services that are funded with federal money,” Obligacion said. “The more money we can qualify as (a county) the more resources there will be to help the homeless.

Previous counts conducted by community volunteers have come up with about 20 homeless in Manteca.

But organizers in the past have said that is on the low side. But if they can’t document a homeless person, they can’t include them in the count.

Before the last count in January of this year, now retired HOPE Family Shelter executive director Dave Thompson said there were about 20 people counted as homeless in 2012. The number reflects those who are hardcore homeless. 

Those 20 consisted primarily of people who call Manteca home. Either they grew up here or they were living her before they became homeless.

Almost all are men and few are young. Homeless advocates say the young males that become homeless are typically just a year or so out of high school so they are able to access a network of friends who will allow them to sleep on a couch or such for a few nights. Typically unless they have a severe issue such as drug addiction they usually eventually get away from the streets.

That isn’t the case with the hardcore homeless who make the streets their homes.

The closest single shelters for the homeless are in Stockton, Lodi, Modesto, and Turlock.

HOPE Family Shelter has helped more than 2,000 homeless people get back on their feet since they first opened their doors 21 years ago. They help families and mothers with children. They do not accommodate single men or women or mothers who have teen-age boys. The prohibition of mothers with teen boys has to do with the fact HOPE’s mother and children shelter on Union Road lacks adequate bathroom facilities to serve both genders.

Advocates say many of the homeless families sleep on couches and floors in friends’ houses for a few days and move on before they get the tenant in trouble. Some sleep in garages while others stay in a motel for a few days and then go back out on the street to live out of vehicles until they get enough money to get a motel room. Still others will camp at nearby parks and even along the river.

Manteca Unified School District has indicated that 700 of its 23,000 students at any given time can be classified as homeless.

Manteca Police officers have a referral list of services they now distribute to the homeless. It includes a dozen Manteca organizations that help the homeless, a Lathrop church, as well as county agencies. In addition “multi-service” referrals for the HOPE Family Shelter, Love INC, and the Manteca Pregnancy Help Center are included.

The police chief said the next Manteca homeless summit will take place in February.