FARMINGTON – A chilling rain noisily pounded umbrellas, tents and a fading carpet of autumn leaves on Saturday night at the University of Maine’s Abbott Park.

It wasn’t a night to be outside, homeless.

But for 13 hardy souls testing their mettle, “A Night in the Park” was a night worth the cold soak if it drew attention to Franklin County’s lack of a shelter and plight of the area’s homeless – 133, to be exact. Thirty-two of them are domestic violence victims.

As of Saturday, that’s how many homeless people have been identified as needing safe haven, according to Lisa Laflin of New Vineyard.

“One hundred and thirty-three individuals, so it’s obviously a need,” Laflin, interim chair of the Greater Franklin County Homeless Coalition, said while standing in the rain with a handful of other women. Water pooled around their six tents.

“Many of them are young and pregnant and bouncing from cars to couches. There may be even more, but without a shelter, we are not able to count them as homeless, so they don’t qualify for state and federal funding,” Laflin said.

That’s why the debut Night in the Park was needed, to raise awareness to the largely unseen problem of homelessness in greater Franklin County and to raise funds to help people when other resources are exhausted.

As if on cue, a young woman exited an idling car beside the park’s edge to give volunteers Briana Noles and Julia Terry an envelope containing $200. The money was raised by SAD 9’s Mount Blue High School YETI club.

About 30 minutes earlier, a formerly homeless woman stopped by and donated an umbrella, blankets and a large glass jar of money.

“Despite the weather, there are people who realize this is a major issue. One of the challenges we have is in identifying homelessness, because it isn’t in the urban concept with which we’re familiar, like cardboard boxes. It’s hidden.

“So once people understand the need, clergy, people and students come together to address it,” Laflin said.

The South Church and St. Joseph’s youth ministry groups assisted Laflin’s volunteers, conducting their own “sleep out” on the grounds of St. Joseph’s church.

As darkness settled, rain fell even harder in Abbott Park. It forced late-arriving participants like Alecia Swiharte of Wilton and her 5-year-old daughter Cadence, to hurriedly erect their pup tent in a manner that didn’t look quite right.

“I didn’t know that we had a homelessness awareness group in the area,” Swiharte added.

Neither did Lynette Hinkley and Joy Welch, also of Wilton. Noles is Hinkley’s daughter.

“This is something my daughter has been working on and we’re here to support it,” Hinkley said.

“And, Genesis likes for us to do community service,” Welch added. “I was very surprised to learn there is no homeless shelter here and, that we have so many homeless here.”

The closest shelter for teens and runaway youth is Lewiston’s New Beginnings, participant and volunteer Julia Terry of Sexual Assault Victims Emergency Services Inc. of Farmington said.

“But one of the problems with that is that if you’re in Rangeley, you’re staying on a friend’s couch. That’s why a lot of the time, the state won’t count such people as being homeless,” Terry said.

That’s why the coalition is considering acquisition of long-term leases from area landlords to guarantee available housing.

Regarding Saturday night’s experience, Terry, said via e-mail on Sunday morning, “Weather conditions were pretty awful all night long, but people felt positive in the morning and I heard many talking about what next year might be like.”

The Greater Franklin County Homeless Coalition is raising funds to help an individual or family in crisis, to create an emergency shelter and affordable housing. To donate contact Briana Noles at 293-4597 or 491-8988 or [email protected]. Money raised from Saturday night’s Night in the Park will be used to leverage matching funds from the United Way.