LAKEWOOD - Billy Mills thought about love when he moved to Ocean County to live with his girlfriend. But after a breakup, a layoff and other financial setbacks, what Mills found instead was the thing he never considered for himself.

Homelessness.

Mills works. He's a groundskeeper for a local flea market when its open for the season and will soon get paid for his role supervising an overnight warming center that opens for the homeless on bitterly cold nights.

But even still, he doesn't make enough for stable housing. He stays in an abandoned home while he waits for housing assistance, a situation for which he considers himself "fortunate" because he knows others who are in much worse positions.

"It's very hard to live in New Jersey if you don't make a certain level of money," said Mills, 51, who has a plan to save money, return to his native upstate New York and start a painting business.

"It's really hard financially to get out of this situation. It's really easy to get into it. But it's hard to get out of it."

Check out the video below to hear Mills talk about how hard it can be to overcome homelessness even while working.

Advocates hoping to end homelessness heard stories like Mills over and over as they started the annual NJCounts, a point-in-time census of the homeless situation in New Jersey.

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Volunteers spread out across the state to ask New Jerseyans — both those who are homeless as well as those at risk for homelessness — where they slept during the overnight hours of Jan. 22 and Jan. 23.

Some volunteers started as early as midnight Jan. 23, while others will continue to count the homeless population through Jan. 29 at events that also wrap those in need with the services to pull or keep them out of homelessness. Listen to site coordinator below explain the process.

Volunteers offered everything from new coats, toiletries and food to medical care, legal assistance, job training opportunities and housing assistance. Students from the Parisian Beauty Academy in Hackensack offered manicures, haircuts and beard trims at the Bergen County Humane Services Center.

"Not everybody has the money for these services," said Angelica Hernandez, a student at the beauty academy. "How you look can change your energy and how you feel."

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development mandates statewide point-in-time counts as a requirement for counties to apply for federal grants that fund programs to fight homelessness, said Kate Kelly with Monarch Housing Associates, a nonprofit group that directs NJCounts.

The data is also used by counties to formulate programs that directly target their specific issues within homelessness, Kelly said. Bergen County, for example, included for the first time a special survey of the youth homeless population.

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Teams of young people conducting the survey walked through Garden State Plaza and Bergen Community College in search of homeless people between the ages of 18 and 24. The count was initiated by a task force created last year by Bergen County to end youth homelessness after the county previously eliminated chronic homelessness and homelessness among its veteran population.

But the stories from New Jerseyans at the counts this week show just how difficult it can be to overcome homelessness when, as Kelly said, the state is facing a "severe shortage of affordable housing."

USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey reporters fanned across the state to hear those stories.

Bergen County

Five men spent Tuesday night into Wednesday morning under the Route 46 bridge in Palisades Park alongside a partially frozen Overpeck Creek.

They slept on torn mattresses supported by planks of wood and large rocks set up close to the creek's water.

Daniel is new to the Bergen County area; he's only lived under the bridge for about a month. The others have been there for about a year.

Daniel said he may stop in at the Hackensack homeless shelter after spending a few nights trying to keep warm in single-digit temperatures that arrived from the North on the heels of rain and snow. He said he knows someone there.

Paul Nickels, a volunteer who knows what it's like to live on the streets, said there were way more homeless folks near the creek last year. He said at this time last year, the creek's water level was much higher than it is currently.

"Last year, the water was touching their mattresses," Nickels said.

Monmouth County

June, 46, and her fiancé were once homeowners. They had careers. June was a professional dancer, and her fiancé worked in finance.

Divorces and medical issues hit both. June is on permanent disability after a car crash. Her fiancé is due for hernia surgery, needs a knee replacement and now has a heart issue.

Even still, they were making due until June's mother died. Her father decided to sell the house they were living in and didn't want them to stay there while the house was on the market.

June says she can pay for a hotel for about half of a month when she gets her disability check. She's found the cheapest rates in Atlantic City, where she can get a room for $200 a week.

But once that runs out, the couple starts the rotation. ShopRite is open until midnight. McDonald's is open 24 hours. They can typically stay until about 5 to 6 a.m. depending if they find a nice manager.

They go to regularly to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings both to address past issues with alcoholism, but also to stay warm.

Both are trying to get out of homelessness. June is applying to culinary school. Her fiancé has a job lined up once he recovers from hernia surgery.

But for now, they don't have the funds to afford housing. June said she could afford about $500 a month for rent — if such a place existed. She's been working with homeless advocates to find stable housing, but expressed frustration with the process.

"It sucks. I wish the resources were out there," she said. "It's not like I'm not doing my homework. I call numbers and no one responds back."

Middlesex County

At Elijah’s Promise in New Brunswick and Cathedral International in Perth Amboy, social service agencies included the county Nursing Division of the Department of Public Safety & Health and Board of Social Services; St. Peter’s University Hospital; Hyacinth AIDS Foundation; the Women Aware shelter for victims of domestic abuse; Soldier On, which focuses on homeless veterans; and Coming Home, the nonprofit formed by Middlesex County and the United Way of Central Jersey to end homelessness in the county.

Most provided information, but some were able to provide or schedule immediate services.

"It’s like a wrap-around service day," said Yvette Molina, community services director, Elijah’s Promise, New Brunswick.

Both Elijah’s Promise and Cathedral International distributed bags of toiletries, coats, blankets and underwear to the homeless. Typically, the Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen provides lunch and dinner to about 150 hungry and homeless people daily, but on during the count, the agency served food throughout the day from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Michele Conley, the health and family services administrative coordinator for Acelero Learning in South Amboy, was among the volunteers at Elijah’s Promise.

She said she was particularly touched by a developmentally disabled man who said he had been living on the street for a year.

"I don’t know how people can do it," Conley said. "And he’s not getting any services because of a communications barrier. He’s not able to advocate for himself. He’s not able to follow up on any resources or referrals that we can give him. I don’t even know how you can let someone get up and walk away when that’s the situation that they’re in without doing something."

Another couple counted Wednesday live on the Route 1 corridor, occasionally finding shelter in such places as abandoned cars, said Robert Mason, social services coordinator and drug counselor of Elijah’s Promise.

The home they were living in was foreclosed right around the same time he lost his job, which caused them to lose their car. Yet, she still works, getting there by foot, Mason said.

"That’s how they get around, they walk," he said. "If they go to Social Services, they have to walk. If they have to go to Coming Home, they have to walk. If they have to go to Social Security, they have to walk. If they have to go to her job, they have to walk. Everywhere they go, they are walking, but they’re sleeping wherever they can find a spot: in an abandoned car, a train station, abandoned buildings."

Ocean County

Tim, 41, had always stayed busy with his union, Local 25, as a merchant marine machine operator. Even when work was slow, Tim could always return to his mom's home until work picked up again.

But in the past year, Tim's mother died. Then his father. And his grandmother.

The funeral expenses for all three, coupled with taking time off work to care for his mother and paying her medical bills "tapped me out financially," he said.

Even still, Tim made due, working where he could with a friend who cleans out storage units and bouncing from friend's house to friend's house, sleeping on couches.

That came to an end when the last friend herself was facing eviction. Since he wasn't on her lease, Tim was forced out immediately.

He turned to the nightly warming centers that open when temperatures dip below freezing. His cell phone was stolen at one of those centers, leaving unable to reach out to friends or able to respond to calls for work.

"There are people who care about me being in this situation, but I can't contact them right now," he said.

"It can happen to anybody. I never thought of being homeless. It's weird even to say it, that I'm homeless. Everything can change in a week."

Passaic County

There were 20 men and two women in Passaic’s temporary homeless shelter at Speer Village on Aspen Place early Wednesday morning.

Construction workers Andy Alexander, 25, and Antonio Diaz, 39, said they are seasonal homeless, which means when they have construction work in the warmer months, they can afford a room. In the winter, when work is non-existent, the Spanish-speaking men said they live on the street or at the shelter.

"For three years, (work) had been pretty consistent, " Diaz said. "This year it's different. Work dried up. I can't afford a room."

Even though work is short, the two men said they "hang out" in front of home improvement stores in the hopes of getting day jobs.

In the meantime, they had a meal, were given socks, hats and gloves by the shelter volunteers.

Scott Boulder, 50, was staying with family for a while, but after some tough times and the destruction of his ID, he left for the streets. He said he can’t afford to replace his non-driving identification and so can’t get work.

Jadwaga Procil, 45, was one of the two women at the shelter. She normally lives under the Piaget Avenue bridge in Clifton, but the cold brought her to the shelter.

She said the death of her companion sent her into a depression and back to her "drinking problem." The drinking caused her to lose her job and her home, she said. She said she doesn’t have the money to return to Poland, where she has family.

It's not easy to find a job when home is under a bridge, she said.

"Unlike men, a woman living under the bridge — no one will hire her."

Somerset County

Though Somerset County is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, many residents do not recognize that there are homeless people in their hometowns, said Jeremy Hirsch, the principal planner the county's Department of Social Services.

People also do not know there is a sizable group of people who are "at risk" of being homeless, Hirsch said. These people may be "couch surfing" at friends or relatives or facing the threat of being evicted, he said

In conjunction with the annual county, the Somerset Freedom Trail, 166 W. Main St., Somerville, also participated in the Project Homeless Connect event.

Several nonprofit organizations and social service providers were on hand throughout the morning with donations of clothes and personal care items.

The most popular item this year, like all years, was socks, Hirsch said, the one piece of clothing that the homeless need the most.

"They got what they need the most," he said.

