Shelter needs apparent in Lake, Osceola.

“I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.” — Psalms 55

Nothing like a refreshing jolt of fanny-freezing weather to point out that that some counties in these parts don’t have an emergency shelter for homeless people.

Orange and Seminole counties do. But Lake and Osceola? None. For shame, for shame.

Nowhere in America are shelters more urgently needed than in horribly underpaid Central Florida, where lean wages depend on serving tourists, and the climate draws those who can’t make it through Northern winters. So many people here live week to week, riding the edge of homelessness.

Do you see them? Or are they invisible to you?

They’re the working folks hunched over phones with cracked screens, reliant on that electronic link. They’re emotionally lost veterans. Yes, some are alcoholics and drug addicts. But some are just older people being buffeted through the world, unable to manage the complexities of applying for food stamps on a tiny screen.

Many are proud, so they deliberately hide. They’re not panhandling on the street. But even they come out when the temperature plummets as it did this week, and the rest of us get to see what might be called the “hidden homeless.” In Lake, some came to four churches that for the first time in memory opened their doors this week because of the weather. It was a tiny step, hopefully, toward a permanent shelter.

Jana Gates, 60, was grateful for a warm night’s sleep Thursday at LifePointe Church in Eustis, which opened when the county asked churches to step forward and help.

Gates cared for her mother for 15 years in a nice house 1.9 miles from the church until her mother died in her arms. She lost the house when she couldn’t make the payments without her mother’s help.

Gates gets a disability check that “isn’t enough to live on.” Still, she’s a glass-half-full kind of person — she pointed out that she has something nobody else at the shelter did: a precious car. Her 10-year-old Honda is her home.

“I feel sorry for the people who don’t have cars. I can run air and cool off at night sometimes,” she said, referring to the region’s often broiling weather. “I’m just so blessed.”

She and her happy dog named Mr. Wilson have lived in her car for a year now, driving from Eustis to Tavares to Mount Dora, parking at night where she deems a secluded spot “safe” and quietly driving on the next morning.

Gates, who was reading Psalms 55 from the Bible while the temperatures outside dipped to 29 degrees, said she is praying for God to reveal the next step in her life. She has multiple sclerosis, so

her current lifestyle must end soon.

“I can’t live in my car anymore,” she said, her voice catching. “I’m exhausted. I just can’t.”

Around the room, church members listened to the hard-luck stories. A 57-year-old well-spoken Army veteran told how his life collapsed after his wife died. He sleeps rolled in a blanket on the back porches of friends and sometimes up against the doors of churches. A young woman with her 6-year-old daughter recounted fleeing domestic violence in Georgia and arriving three days earlier in Central Florida, looking to start a new life.

Lake County officials have begun to realize that the need is growing. There simply has to be a place where a weary soul can get a hot meal and a hot shower and a night of sleep in safety.

County Commissioner Leslie Campione said officials have begun to talk with local charities about what to do. Meanwhile, those who work with the homeless end up driving them to Orlando to dump them in the emergency shelters there. That’s absurd. These are fellow humans, whatever their mental condition, not cattle.

In Osceola, Transition House deals mostly with veterans enrolled in specific programs, and, like Lake, refers emergency cases to Orlando.

“I have had different conversations with county leadership over the years — different administrations, different county managers — but nothing ever materialized,” said Dr. Tom Griffin, who founded Transition House in 1993 and still serves as CEO.

He said the key is to create “one central place” where people who are homeless can stay temporarily while they’re enrolled in “transitional” housing programs. (All four counties have such programs.)

This isn’t about money. America is a wealthy country, and Osceola and Lake are booming counties. They can afford to care for people in need. This is about power. The homeless don’t have it, so they’re easy to ignore. Until the temperatures drop.

If human suffering were a priority, commissioners would stop whining and skim 1 percent of Osceola’s general fund budget of $153 million and the same from Lake’s $148 million to create homeless shelters so people can stop living like animals.

That would be $1.5 million in Osceola and $1.4 million in Lake for buildings. From there, charities, churches and community groups could make the programs run.

Don’t complicate this with bureaucratic whining. Need help identifying that 1 percent? Pass me a pencil. It really is that simple. It really can be done. Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com