They may not be as obvious as their counterparts in the city, but there are hundreds of homeless people in Baltimore County. Some may be in shelters, but many of them are out of sight, camping in the woods.

On a Monday morning, Wade Pratt and Charlene Gaskins were getting ready to head out to visit one of those camps. Pratt opened the trunk of his car that was chock full of coats, sweatpants, toiletries, granola bars, water, hats and scarves.

"I really wish we’d gotten a van," he said.

He and Gaskins drove to some woods right off the Beltway in Dundalk and walked about 100 yards to a campsite with about half a dozen tents. Pratt says these homeless campsites are like musical chairs.

"“Usually what happens, is there’ll be a couple of really good spots that after a certain point either some people who cause trouble move in or else there’s too many people," Pratt said. "Someone notices. They complain. Everyone has to move."

Pratt and Gaskins work for Prologue, a non-profit homeless outreach program. It has a contract with Baltimore County and gets its funding mostly through government grants. The camp they’re visiting is one of the largest in the county. Around 10 people live there, including "Cheddar." He’s 25 and said he has been homeless since his mother kicked him out seven years ago.

"And you know, I’ve just been out here surviving," Cheddar said. "And I’ve got my young fiancé here, you know. She panhandles too. So you know we get it done a little faster. We have everything we need. We only panhandle for the basics: food, something to drink and cigarettes."

Cheddar’s fiancé wouldn’t give her name, but said she was able to keep a job at a Pizza Hut for about a year.

Cheddar says sees older people who are homeless and he doesn’t want that to be him.

"I made a decision that I wasn’t going to live in and out of jail, and I’ve been doing good on that so far," he said. "So I definitely want to make another decision not to be out here past the age of 30."

But that’s easier said than done. Some low-rent apartments for the chronically homeless recently became available in the county and Cheddar and his fiancé applied. But demand exceeded the supply and they were aced out. So for now they remain in their tent.

Cheddar gets food stamps and Medicaid and is trying to get disability. He says he’s been diagnosed with a host of mental health problems, including bipolar disease, "schizophrenia, psychosis, multiple personality disorder, OCD, ODD, and ADHD."

Like Cheddar, the chronically homeless are more likely to be mentally ill or dealing with substance abuse and, therefore, the toughest to help. After years of being on the streets they might not trust someone who reaches out to them.

It’s hard for them to keep appointments or stay in touch, especially if they don’t have phones. Gaskins says there’s only so much you can do for them to provide them stability.

"Some people we get out," Gaskins said. "Oh my goodness, that’s a big celebration. When someone actually leaves the woods and goes into permanent housing. And it does happen."

Gaskins and Pratt say it’s often a waiting game. Waiting for someone who is living on the street to say they’re ready to come inside and get help. But many of Baltimore County’s homeless have been out there for just days or weeks, not years.

Fifty seven percent of the county’s homeless have a job. Nearly half are families with children. Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz says officials estimate there are 745 men, women and children each night seeking shelter in Baltimore County.

"Remember a lot of people who are homeless aren’t necessarily the person you might envision soliciting money on a corner," he said. "They’re really people who are just down on their luck. They lost their job. They lost their house."

Baltimore County runs several homeless shelters. The newest one is a 150-bed men’s shelter on the campus of Spring Grove Hospital in Catonsville that opened about a year and a half ago.

Patrick Mimms, a resident advocate at the shelter, said the men who live there are assigned a case manager who helps them develop a plan to get out.

"We’re all about getting our guys jobs and getting them housed," he said.

Men can stay in the shelter for up to 90 days, even though Mimms said some men stay a little longer.

Joe Bruno had been living with his mother but became homeless after she died. He says he lived in the woods near Eastpoint Mall and panhandled nearby for more than a year before coming to the shelter.

"I would just stand on North Point Boulevard and you know, just ask people if they have any spare change,"he said. "It’s very sad."

Bruno occasionally got a hot meal at St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church on Eastern Avenue. He’s gotten on disability now, is looking for a part time job and, even better, moved into his own apartment.

"But thank God for this west side men’s shelter," Bruno said. "It’s a blessing. It really is."

But it’s not a blessing within reach for all of Baltimore County’s homeless, even if they want to go there. Kamenetz said for every homeless person who does get a bed at a county shelter, two people have to be turned away because there’s no room. And the largest concentration of homeless is in eastern Baltimore County.

Next year, the county is opening a new shelter on the campus of Franklin Square Medical Center in Rosedale. In addition, the Obama administration has pushed to use federal money to get the homeless into permanent housing as quickly as possible. It’s unclear, however, what will happen when a new, more conservative administration takes over next month.

Jason Burns, who runs the county’s data base that tracks the homeless, says the percentage of homeless leaving shelters for permanent housing is up dramatically.

"We have been able to increase that from 27 percent in 2011, up to 70 percent in 2015," he said.

Baltimore County is also running a pilot program to try to keep people out of the shelters to begin with.

Colleen Mahony, with Baltimore County’s Planning Department, says some people just need a little help to get out of a jam. Maybe they need to get their car fixed so they can get to work, or need a train ticket to another state where a relative will take them in.

"Sometimes it’s just as simple as sitting down and having a third party talk," she said. "Whether it be with a landlord or whether it be with your family to talk about what went wrong and how can you fix it."

Most of us only encounter homeless people when they’re panhandling. And officials say whether you decide to help them or not, the best thing you can do is to treat them like they’re human.

Remember, Mahony said, they are “our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our children.”

One thing you can do to help, in Baltimore County, at least, is give a homeless person a “street card.” It’s available in county libraries and lists services for homeless people, such as legal assistance, shelters, emergency food and shelters, along with contact information.