Five-year-old Damonta runs giggling to his mother and throws his arms around her neck, spilling her drink on her lap and the floor of a homeless shelter.

"Damonta!" screams his mother, Davonna Davis, laughing. "I just washed these clothes."

Damonta grins and runs to join a friend near the toy box as his father, Willie Davis, retreats to the kitchen for a mop.

"I wonder if they even realize what's going on," Willie says as he watches his son. Davonna and Willie moved their three children, Breanna, Stephawn and Damonta, from their Chicago public housing apartment to the Lansing area last August.

But they struggled to find decent affordable housing within their low-income rent range, and months after they moved to town, the family still lives at Haven House, a family-oriented homeless shelter in East Lansing. Davonna works at a Meridian Mall shoe store and Willie cares for the children while searching for a job.

But the lagging economy and a bad credit history has impaired the search for affordable housing.

Later that evening, Davonna shoves clothes in a suitcase perched on her bunk in the room occupied by the five family members. Ten-year-old Breanna sits on the top bunk flipping through her textbook.

Eight-year-old Stephawn sits on the tile floor and stares at his video game playing on the small television on a dresser. Two suitcases of belongings and clothes lay stacked beside the dresser for quick packing if the family finds a home the next day.

Davonna snaps the suitcase shut and tells Willie about the house she will look at in the morning.

"I look forward to her having all the answers," Willie says, smiling at his wife.

Life in the shelter

Davonna said she hoped to provide a better life for her family by moving from Chicago to Lansing.

"I was seeing too many of my friends and family get killed," she said. "I was going to funerals three times a week. It was too violent. The only way out was to leave Chicago."

Not yet a teenager, Breanna said Chicago seemed too dangerous for her. "Our neighborhood was really bad because there were a lot of gangs, fights over things, shooting and drugs," she said.

When a friend told Davonna and Willie about the opportunities for education and housing in Lansing, Davonna decided the family should move. She quit her job as a security guard, and on Aug. 10, the family boarded a Greyhound bus with nothing but four suitcases and moved - leaving remaining belongings in storage in Chicago.

"For me, it was a messed-up move," Willie said. "I wasn't too happy about it. I was trying to figure out where I was gonna be and I felt bad. In the beginning, we got into a lot of arguments."

The family spent their first night in Lansing at a friend's mother's house and moved to the Volunteers of America shelter in Lansing. Davonna said she disliked shelter rules that forced men and women to stay in separate rooms and families could not reside together.

Three weeks later, they transferred to Haven House, where they could sleep in the same room in one of several family units on the second floor.

They become part of 30 shelter residents who wake each morning in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar rules, rejected for credit mistakes by landlords and forced to apply to live in homes littered with animal feces and garbage.

Along with the other parents in the shelter, they stand silently, feeling themselves lose authority as parents in their children's eyes.

Haven House director Beverly Wiener said the shelter only accepts families with children, and the average stay is 30 days.

"We renew people's stay on a weekly basis, provided they're taking care of business and doing what's expected," she said.

The shelter has rules for residents that include a curfew and prohibit alcohol or drugs. Each adult is responsible for a few housekeeping chores each night, which serves as rent payment, Wiener said.

Residents also are required to meet with staff members daily to discuss plans for the day and results of the previous day.

"We do a budget with people and hold the money while they're staying so they can save for housing," Wiener said. "We put together a plan where we find their income and essential expenses and save the rest for housing - it's part of the budgeting process."

Although she appreciated the shelter, Davonna said she sometimes felt like she lost her identity.

"To me, they take away your authority from your kids," Davonna said, explaining parents aren't allowed to discipline their children while staying at the shelter.

Both Davonna and Willie struggled with depression during their stay in the shelter, but Davonna said she had to stay strong and keep her composure "so the kids wouldn't feel down."

"I had to keep praying," she said.

The issue of homelessness

About 3.5 million Americans are homeless each year, according to a study by The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

But experts say those numbers are probably much higher.

"Homelessness is not something that can be easily measured," said Mary Elizabeth May, health and housing policy analyst for the National Coalition for the Homeless. "It's not a permanent condition. It's an experience people go through - people are in and out of homelessness."

May said though there are no direct causes, the two major factors are poverty and a lack of affordable housing. She said family homelessness is continuing to increase across the United States.

"Low wages are a problem," May said. "With the increasing cost of housing and health care, a minimum-wage job is not enough to be able to afford those things and be able to support a family."

A minimum wage earner in Michigan can afford a monthly rent of no more than $268, according to a study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That is less than half of the $674 Fair Market Rent rate for a two-bedroom unit in Michigan.

Ingham County residents must earn $12.40 per hour to afford a two-bedroom unit at the Fair Market Rent and a minimum-wage earner must work 96 hours per week for the same unit. Fair Market Rent is determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

"The major factor is that housing is too expensive and the gap between what housing costs and what people earn is too great," housing coalition spokeswoman Kim Schaffer said. "You'd be hard-pressed to find an entry-level job that paid $12.40."

Affordable housing rates are defined as 30 percent of a family's income, but Wiener said many people who come to Haven House spend more than 50 percent of their incomes on rent.

"If there's a change in income - if you get sick and miss work or if your hours are cut in half because business is low - you're really messed up because you don't have any give in that budget," Wiener said.

Adjusting to new surroundings

Haven House rules state residents' lives must continue as normal - children attend school and adults go to work each day.

Breanna attends fifth grade at Post Oak Elementary School while she stays at Haven House.

The fifth-grader is the epitome of style - wearing a glittery jean jacket and khaki pants. Her mother recently styled her hair.

"I learned to braid hair to save money," Davonna said.

Breanna said she did not tell her friends at school that she lived in the shelter.

"They should not make fun of me though because everyone I knew at Post Oak was my friend," she said. "And when you talk about someone else like that, it might come right back to you. Some day, they might be sitting in Haven House or VOA."

Willie said his children struggle to adjust to life in the shelter.

"They wanted to go home," he said, "and we couldn't explain that we didn't have a house."

House hunting

Damonta giggles and runs around the bus stop pole as Breanna quietly sketches in a notebook. Davonna leans forward on the bench as she tells Willie about the house they are about to view.

Breanna finishes her drawing and holds it up proudly. It is a sketch of a two-story house, complete with attic windows and a tree with a swing.

"This is the house I want to live in," she says.

Soon, the bus arrives and the children scramble to be first in line as Willie flashes the pass the shelter provided.

The family works with Beth Behringer, a housing placement counselor for The Salvation Army, who helps ensure the house they rent is up to code and affordable.

Behringer, who saved the Davises from several rental scams, said she always calls The Office of Code Compliance to make sure the house is suitable because many houses have been red-tagged as unlivable by Lansing housing inspectors. "Sometimes landlords will scrape the red tags off the house and try to rent it," she said.

And the Davises have encountered their share of problems while searching for a suitable home - through about 160 houses.

"Some were too small and one house had animal feces all over the carpet and in the air," Davonna said. "One house had burn marks on the outlets where it looked like a fire - what if it's something with the wiring? I've got kids to worry about."

But walking down this prospective new street, Davonna smiles. "It's such a nice neighborhood," she says.

Pushing through the screen door, Breanna, Stephawn and Damonta clamor to the second floor of the rental house.

"Oh yeah, I want this room," Breanna shouts as she removes her shoes and cartwheels across the blue carpet while her mother completes the rental forms.

"It's really nice," Willie says. "I definitely think we could live here."

But, on that street, they were denied housing because of a bad credit history - a problem most Salvation Army clients experience.

Almus Thorpe, executive director of the Greater Lansing Housing Coalition, said many people with bad credit may be rejected by more affordable landlords, forced instead to live in "substandard dwelling that is outrageously expensive." But there are other options available, he said.

"There are people out there who can help them repair their credit, and in many cases it doesn't take as long as one might imagine," Thorpe said.

But Davonna said she doesn't think the process is that easy. "You gotta pay a fee to get your credit fixed," she said. "If you don't have money for credit, how will you get it fixed?"

Surviving the system

The city offers other options for low-income people that can help reduce loan payments, said Chris Stuchell, Lansing Housing Commission executive director.

The largest available option is the Section 8 Voucher, which helps low-income families afford suitable houses by using federal money to subsidize their rent, leaving the tenant to pay 30 to 40 percent of their income.

Another option is subsidized housing, which also uses federal money to pay landlords part of the necessary rent so the tenant pays less. About 1.2 million families across the country live in public housing, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

HUD's budget was slashed by 30 percent on Jan. 1, which is about $250 million. These funds help offset maintenance, security and utility costs for public housing systems.

Some agencies have lost up to 50 percent of the funding from HUD as compared to last year, said Christine Siksa, policy analyst for the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, adding HUD is promising to drop cuts to 10 percent. But there is little hope for additional funding until summer.

In addition, Congress might vote to reduce administrative funding for Section 8 vouchers, which would decrease the number of eligible families. Stuchell said reduced funding would cause already long waiting lists to become longer. The Davises applied for both public housing and a Section 8 Voucher but were told they would likely wait for more than a year.

Stuchell said the waiting lists in Lansing usually contain 500 families and last from six months to one year, but in other areas, the waiting period for assistance is often much longer.

"There are big cities where the waiting list can be up to 10 years," Schaffer said, adding in 2002, Boston reported 14,000 households on waiting lists for public housing.

"Public housing is not being built, it's being demolished," she said.

And May said this can affect the U.S. homeless population.

"We have seen, as the federal government has pulled out of spending money on affordable housing, there has been a direct correlation with the rise in homelessness," May said.

Solving the problem

But the low-income housing problems do not have to be permanent, Schaffer said. "It's definitely a solvable problem. It's just being ignored."

The solution is increasing funding for low-income housing, she said.

"The main thing we're advocating is the creation of a national housing trust fund," Schaffer said, adding the process would set aside money to be used for housing projects.

Reynolds said the answer is not as clear-cut.

"If I knew the answer, hopefully we'd be out of business in five years," she said. "Our staff is always getting together to look for ways to answer that question."

Still, she said the hardest part of her job is to see former shelter residents forced back into homelessness. "I like to see people succeed," Reynolds said, "and I like to see every family that leaves out of here make it."

Home sweet home

Off a main Lansing road, down a slightly crowded street sits a small brick house with a van in front.

The Davises found their home after months of searching. Inside, Willie reclines on the bed and stares at the television while Breanna squats in front of Davonna, who meticulously works her hair into tiny braids.

Damonta leans on the dining room table and scribbles pictures on a piece of notebook paper, singing to himself.

Stephawn races through the living room, pushing his gigantic truck, a Christmas gift, into a plush couch. He twists the plastic key in the truck to rev the engine.

The $75 truck of Stephawn's dreams was purchased with money provided by a "Secret Santa" from Cristo Rey Community Center for Christmas.

"I got a froggy game," Damonta says, and Breanna presents her new Barbie car and flashy doll.

Davonna used the remainder of the money to purchase a washer and dryer for the house, using her monthly food stamps for a giant homemade Christmas dinner of stuffing, ham, cakes and pies.

"Everything's been working out," she says.

While the family lived in the house nearly two months without a phone and used public transportation, some problems were solved.

The family had a phone installed as soon as it fit into their monthly budget, and The Salvation Army donated a van that cuts Davonna's transportation to work from an hour and a half to 15 minutes.

Davonna said the kids were so excited about the van, they wanted her to drive all day.

Though he still misses his life in Chicago near his family, Willie said he's glad he moved.

"In Chicago, we never laughed and joked and we were always arguing," he said.

"But now we have better communication than before. This brought us a lot closer."

Elissa Englund can be reached at englunde@msu.edu.