Barbara Kalil, a former practical nurse who lost her job to a medical technician, calls a tent city set up near the Point Street Bridge her new home. She has been homeless since September.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PROVIDENCE — Before a ranger kicked her out, Barbara Kalil slept in a pup tent in Roger Williams National Park. Then, last month, she and her boyfriend, John, pitched a bigger tent between a concrete retaining wall, supporting South Water Street, and the Woonasquatucket River.

It wasn’t a great site –– cars whizzing overhead splashed water on their tent –– but it seemed safe. Soon, about a dozen other men and women pitched tents next to them.

The homeless community, dubbed Camp Runamuck by a founder, is the second to surface on Providence land near a bridge or highway. The first, established under the Crawford Street Bridge in late January, is called Hope City.

“The majority of people here have had some kind of catastrophic event –– the loss of a job, or a major medical problem,” Kalil said.

The 49-year-old single mother is among them. She lost her job as a nurse in Providence during a company cutback. Now, she earns money holding going-out-of-business signs for troubled companies. But it isn’t enough to afford her old address, an off -season motel room in Newport, she said. “I’ve never been homeless before.”

According to the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, the number of people in shelters in April jumped to 891, from 678 in April a year ago, a nearly 32-percent increase.

Their numbers have been increasing since mid-2007, largely because of high unemployment, a bad economy and a record number of foreclosures, said the organization’s executive director, Jim Ryczek. The Providence-based advocacy group tracks monthly homeless figures.

“We always have people come into the system when they take an economic hit,” Ryczek said. “What we’re trying to do now is figure out how many are new to homelessness.”

Some are coming from a handful of winter shelters that recently closed, he said.

But Kalil was living in a motel with her boyfriend until a few months ago. He lost his job with a wire company when it moved overseas. Then he started suffering seizures.

Now, her belongings –– clothes, medical records and her ID –– are housed in a maroon tent next to a graffiti-strewn wall. Last week, she clutched her rosary beads and fastened a flower to her tent flap.

Several churches are delivering food and water to the encampment.

“We used to find the homeless on the streets. But things are so bad that we’re seeing more places like this, where people come together,” said Barbara Mattscheck, pastor of My Father’s Heart Fellowship, in Johnston.

More shelters aren’t the solution, said Ryczek.

Instead, the state must spend more money on programs such as the Neighborhood Opportunities Program, established by the General Assembly in 2001, he said. It focuses on renovating or building houses or apartment units for low-income Rhode Islanders. “There needs to be a route out of homelessness,” Ryczek said.

pdavis@projo.com