The hill is steep, the path long and winding.

It is 8 p.m. on a weeknight in East Austin, and a dozen of us are stomping around the woods, looking for homeless people. We think there may be some living along this path off Riverside Drive, so up and up we go, hoping to find someone at the top.

This is the 2010 Austin Travis County Homeless Count, a five-hour event where volunteers canvass parks, campsites and other public spaces to calculate the number of unsheltered people in the area.

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