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It takes two car trips for Shamaal Price to move all her belongings.

In the three months since having her son, Jamaal, she's been in and out of motels around the county six different times, with stays at family shelters in between.

By now, Price, 26, has the packing and moving down to a science. As one of the county's homeless families working with the Department of Health and Human Services toward permanent housing, this is her life.

"It's hard to move this much with a baby, and it's hard packing up and moving the same day," Price said, sitting in her motel room in Germantown with Jamaal. "You can't get comfortable, and when you do, then it's time to move again."

On a given day, more than 1,500 people are homeless in Montgomery County. Over the course of a year, more than 4,500 people experience homelessness in the county, according to the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless.

Through its nonprofit partners, the county human services department houses homeless families at three shelters, which can accommodate up to 28 families. When the shelters are full, as they have been for months, families are housed temporarily at one of the four or five motels countywide with which the department contracts. In addition to regular guests, the motels house a small number of families.

Last week, officials reported that about 60 families were living in motels during November and December 2008, an 80 percent increase over the same period in 2007.

"The increases are pretty much due to the economic downturn, particularly with the housing and foreclosure crisis," said Alexander Wertheim, administrator for homeless services in the Department of Health and Human Services.

"We don't have statistics on this, but it's showing up that this isn't what we would have seen two years ago. We already deal with a low-income population, and when they lose any kind of income, plus are living in a place with a high cost of living, that can quickly lead to homelessness." All of those obstacles and bad debt led to Price's homelessness.

She received her first credit card years ago as a college student, and after a failed marriage at 19, a few years living in Germany and medical bills, her estimated debt is $10,000. She now works a few early-morning hours each day as a dispatcher for a shuttle service.

"I can't get approved for any apartments. And when they ask for rent that is three times what you make, I can't afford them," Price said.

According to the latest Self-Sufficiency Standard Report released by the county in September, a family of three needs an income of $68,086 to live at the minimum level in the county. The number jumps to $79,736 for a family of four with two adults and two children.

A person earning minimum wage would need to work 166 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the county, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

Like many homeless people in the county, Price first lived from friend's house to friend's house, sleeping on sofas. She sought help from the county last year upon learning she was pregnant. She was placed in a single women's shelter in Rockville before delivering Jamaal on Nov. 10.

To a 3-month-old, nothing is unusual about living in a one-room motel room.

But for a 7-year-old, practically nothing is further from the norm.

"My oldest daughter, she remembers our old apartment, and she asks me sometimes, ‘When are we going home?'" said Christine Dunham.

"That's hard to hear, and at this point we've lived in so many places …," she said, her voice trailing off.

Dunham, 25, and her husband, Dermain Marshall, 33, call a Germantown motel their place for now. The parents and their four children — Jaya, 7, Kiya, 4, Tre, 3, and Travis, 1 — have been in the county's shelter system for about a year.

The couple had an apartment in Gaithersburg on a Section 8 housing subsidy voucher last year when they were evicted in September for missing a court date and not renewing their voucher. They rented a sublet basement for a short period before the homeowner found out and evicted them.

They then spent one night in a crisis shelter before ending up in the motels. Along the way, Dunham lost her job at Target due to employee cutbacks, and Marshall lost his job at Hollywood Video when the store closed. Both are unemployed, but looking for work. "It sucks," Dunham said about living in the small room with four small children. "I'm grateful to have a roof over my head, but hotel living is tough. I'm just trying not to go crazy."

Simple things are counted as victories: "At least this motel has a stove," she said. "Others we've been in only had a microwave, and feeding kids microwaved food all the time can't be good."

Dunham is enrolled in Montgomery College's graphic design program and expects to graduate in May. She also is planning to enlist in the D.C. Air National Guard.

"I don't see any other way out," she said.

In the meantime, the parents' days involve waking the oldest daughters for school before dawn, then taking two county buses to their schools before Dunham attends her own classes.

Federal mandates require jurisdictions to provide transportation to and from school for homeless students, but the process can take up to five days to begin when the family moves from location to location, Marshall said.

"The toughest part is not having transportation and being so far away from everything," Marshall said. "It's tough to do basic things like go back and forth to the store and get food."

People like Price, Dunham and Marshall can be classified as "already living on the edge of poverty," and when bad things happen, they spiral quickly, according to Sharan London, executive director of the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless.

"The face of Montgomery County is changing. We still think of it as a high-income area, but the number of people with less is more," she said.

London likes to cite a statistic that in a three-year period, the county's population increased 5.2 percent, while the percentage of people living in poverty increased 30 percent in one year.

Since the recession began, jurisdictions around the country have experienced increased pressure on their homeless shelters, just as Montgomery County has, said Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at Washington's National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"It's devastating and people are trying to maintain a good life for their children, and now it's impossible," Berg said. "The jobs just aren't there."

Regionally, Montgomery County's homeless numbers rank better than those in neighboring jurisdictions. When taken as a percentage of the total population, the county has fewer homeless people than do Washington, D.C., Alexandria, Va., and Fairfax and Arlington counties, Va., according to the latest statistics compiled by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

But with the recession peaking, County Councilman George L. Leventhal says the county is in a crisis.

"I know that the homeless is not a popular issue, but the truth is that you can't allow people to sleep on the street," he said. "Providing an opportunity for families to get stable and get back on their feet is good government."

As chairman of the council's Health and Human Services Committee, Leventhal (D-At large) of Takoma Park has presided over funding for the county's homeless initiatives.

"Last year, the one-day homeless count was about 1,200 people, and it seemed to be a manageable problem, but then the recession exploded," Leventhal said.

Fixing the problem will require "a commitment of conscience" from county residents, including his constituents whose tolerance for poor people is "mixed," he said.

"We appeal to the public's conscience. We will get through this," Leventhal said. "But if we aren't willing to support the least of our brothers and sisters, then we cannot be successful at this."