Bruce Roberts pushes a shopping cart — crammed with blankets, clothes, food, suitcases — along Ross Avenue every day.

He moves from place to place, usually after he's been told to scram. He calls the daily exercise exhausting, but he doesn't have much of a choice. He doesn't want to go back to jail, and he doesn't have a home.

"Cops tell me to keep moving. They don't want me to linger," he said. "It makes me tired."

Roberts, 46, was one thousands of homeless people counted Thursday night as part of an annual homeless census.

About 1,300 people fanned out across Dallas — peering down alleyways and climbing under highway overpasses— to count the city's unsheltered population.

The effort, which continued early Friday, was part of an annual federally required point-in-time census that tracks trends in homelessness, such as how many veterans are homeless, how many families are on the street and how many people have been homeless for more than a year.

Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance conducts the count in Dallas and Collin counties and will release official census results March 9.

This year's numbers are expected to rise, partly due to an increase in the number of volunteers counting people, providing a more accurate look at how many people actually live on the streets and in shelters.

1 / 3A homeless man walks along Bryan Street carrying a bottle of water given to him by volunteers during the annual homeless census on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, in Dallas. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3Volunteer Meredith Mortberg checks a map showing her team's appointed area during the annual homeless census on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, in Dallas. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3Dallas police Sgt. Keitric Jones shines a flashlight toward a sofa in a vacant lot along Bryan St. near Bennett Ave. during the annual homeless census on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, in Dallas. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

In 2015, there were 3,141 homeless people counted in Dallas and Collin counties. Last year that number rose to about 3,900.

Volunteers were sent out in groups throughout the city to ask homeless people questions ranging from basic (their age) to invasive (whether they're HIV-positive). The data helps caseworkers match homeless people with housing and services.

Meredith Mortberg, Diana Dinh and Alan Garcia walked about 3 miles near the intersection of Ross and Bennett avenues. The first-time census takers started at Garrett Park, wandered into alleyways and behind closed businesses, looking for people.

Some, dragging suitcases, hurried off when the trio tried to talk to them. One man said he had already been counted on Gaston Avenue, outside their grid.

"That's how I got this water," he said. "They gave me water and socks."

The man told them which direction to go to find other homeless people.

Roberts' shopping cart was parked outside a 7-Eleven, where he was inside microwaving some Uncle Ben's rice. When he walked outside, he answered the series of questions posed by the volunteers, occasionally taking a bite of his rice.

"Is this the first time you've been homeless?" Mortberg asked.

Roberts shook his head.

How long?

"Off and on all my life."

He said he ended up on the streets again after he finished a 15-year prison sentence in 2015.

"15?!" Meredith seemed surprised. "What'd you do?"

It wasn't exactly on script, but Roberts didn't mind answering. He had a younger girlfriend; he didn't know she was underage, he said.

He had a place to stay for a bit in the past two years but ended up back on the street several weeks ago, long enough for grime and dirt to build up under his fingernails.

Yes, he has stayed in shelters. No, he's not HIV-positive and doesn't have AIDS.

He mainly roams. Sometimes he stays with a small group behind a pharmacy.

"I try to clean it up," he said.

When the questionnaire was complete, Mortberg shook his hand, and she and her friends offered him snacks they had stashed in their backpacks for the night.

Then it was back on the streets. Some people, like Roberts, were willing to talk. Others shook their heads, furtively looking at the two cops following the counters.

Those who refuse to answer questions are simply tallied and their locations are noted. People sleeping outdoors are not woken but are counted.

The census takers focused solely on unsheltered homeless people — those sleeping on benches, in cars parked in supermarket lots and in tents under bridges.

1 / 3Volunteer Meredith Mortberg interviews Bruce Austin Roberts in front of a convenience store in the 5000 block of Ross Ave. during the annual homeless census on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, in Dallas. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3Volunteers Meredith Mortberg and Alan Garcia (right) interview a homeless man at the corner of Bryan St. and Garrett Ave. during the annual homeless census on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, in Dallas. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3From left, Dallas police officer Kevin Kelley, Diana Dinh, Alan Garcia and Meredith Mortberg check a map before setting off into Garrett Park for the annual homeless census on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, in Dallas.(Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

Shelters are full, and homeless advocates say affordable housing is limited, pushing many people onto the street.

"Austin Street remains full every night, so we know not everyone who wants shelter has access," said Daniel Roby, executive director of Austin Street Center. "The need is jarring."

Like many others, Roby expects to see the number of homeless people counted this year to rise, partly because of a better census but also because there just seems to be more people living on Dallas streets.

Last year, Dallas officials closed three major homeless encampments, including Tent City, a sprawling village under Interstate 45 outside of downtown. At its largest, Tent City's population was more than 300.

Though many of the people living in the homeless encampments moved into emergency shelter or housing, hundreds remained on the streets. And smaller encampments have been popping up throughout the city.

"Every time they close down an encampment, it just causes the numbers to be more spread out," said Wayne Walker, executive director of OurCalling, a homeless ministry.

OurCalling volunteers regularly visit homeless people and camps throughout the city, adding names and photos to an app. Census takers added 215 people to the app Thursday night.

Walker said the increase in Dallas homelessness shouldn't be a surprise.

"Less housing in the last few years, no new shelters, and just look at the normal population growth, the homeless population is much higher than it's ever been," he said.

And more people are griping about it. Complaints about encampments and debris more than tripled in the past three years. Last year there were 1,012 calls requesting police clear out encampments. In 2014, there were 336 such calls.

"We have a lot more smaller camps vs. the one large camp," said Rebecca Cox, vice president of the homeless alliance. "I'm anticipating seeing a lot more pockets of areas where people find one or two people."

Cox said she expected the count will show that homeless people are spread throughout the city and not just in one central area like many people think.

"A lot of people think, 'Oh, that's a downtown problem,'" she said. "When you go north, there's still a lot of folks under those bridges, you just don't see them as you're driving by."

Mortberg, Dinh and Garcia saw traces of homeless people living in unexpected areas during the count.

They found abandoned bedding, filled shopping carts and a couch in alleys behind new apartment buildings, not far from the gentrifying Knox-Henderson area.

The people the trio talked to would ask, "How are you going to help me?"

"It's heartbreaking, because I don't have a good answer for that. I don't think anyone does," Dinh said later. "We get to go back home and go to bed and to a place to stay and they don't."

And by the end of the night, Roberts had made his way from the 7-Eleven to the pharmacy he sleeps behind.

Just a block away, people stumbled in and out of bars on Lower Greenville, near where they buy organic produce at Trader Joe's.