Thanks to Operation Snowflake, Dave Faucher, 25, now has a part-time job and a bed in a shelter.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

CHARLESTOWN — When Dave Faucher lost his excavation job last summer, he looked for another one. He hadn’t been making much –– $5 an hour for moving boulders with a tractor –– but it paid the rent.

Unable to find other work, Faucher ate one meal a day: noodles. Then he lost his apartment. “I wondered, how am I going to survive?” said Faucher, a neat young man with black hair, black pants and a black goatee.

Two months ago, the 25-year-old homeless man got a part-time job and a bed in a shelter through a program called Operation Snowflake.

“He’s a decent man,” said Deborah Marcotte, director of The Wakefield Oasis, a mental-health agency in South Kingstown. “But in this state, at this time, you just can’t get a job. Does that speak to your character, or to the economy?”

Worried about a surge in homelessness, four South County agencies in the fall launched Operation Snowflake to house the poor on an emergency basis.

“The goal is to make sure no one freezes to death in South County this winter,” said Linda Barden, executive director of Welcome House, the Peace Dale homeless shelter where Faucher now sleeps.

The need is great, said Barden, who recently e-mailed Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse about a lack of legislative concern for the state’s poor.

“The demand for services –– from beds to other help –– has jumped 54 percent in the last six months,” she said.

In Providence, a construction worker on Jan. 2 found the body of a Coventry man under an overpass, after a night of frigid temperatures. State medical examiners said Paul Langlais died of heart disease in an area where the homeless sometimes sleep.

Four social-service directors created the South County program. In addition to Barden and Marcotte, the other members are Deborah Nigrelli, executive director of the Rhode Island Center Assisting Those in Need, and Susan A. Gustaitis, executive director of the Jonnycake Center of Peace Dale.

With donations and corporate money, the program has placed 21 people –– including two families –– in shelters and area motels since November.

The four directors, along with several others, met last week at a Charlestown food pantry to determine how to stretch their $9,200 budget.

To pay for Operation Snowflake, the group last month hosted holiday parties and urged those attending to make donations instead of bringing wine and cookies. The boards of several agencies also helped. And the group placed donation boxes with area businesses.

“It’s a very grass-roots program,” said Barden.

“It reflects our philosophy here,” added Marcotte. “Collaborate or perish.”

During last week’s meeting, the group voted to make the program permanent –– providing they can raise the money.

“The mission is to keep people from dying in South County, but the shelters are full, and we’re turning people away all the time,” said Barden. At Welcome House, she said, “We’re getting 7 to 10 calls a day that we can’t respond to.”

Faucher, meanwhile, is grateful. Although he grew up in Richmond, he comes from a “fractured family.”

Last month, Marcotte gave him a job working with clients at The Wakefield Oasis, off Route 1.

Some days, he cooks for the agency’s clients. His dream is to open a restaurant.

“He’s a good worker,” said Marcotte. “He responds well to others with problems. Who knows better than Dave what it’s like to be down on your luck?”

pdavis@projo.com