A new initiative to establish group housing for homeless Islanders aims to get off the ground by next spring if funding can be secured.

The volunteer-powered Houses of Grace winter shelter system has opened for its third season. “If I didn’t have this, I’d be sleeping around a fire, bundled up,” said Derek MacLeod.

Hospitality Homes, a system of homeless shelters hosted and organized by Island churches, is nearing the end of its first year, with administrators, coordinators and volunteers declaring success.

Beginning in January, seven nights a week, three churches will provide shelter and meals to men, women and families who need a place to get in out of the cold.

Once again, the rural scholars program visited the Vineyard to study a pressing Island issue. This year's topic was homelessness and the housing shortage.

A conversation Thursday about homelessness on Martha’s Vineyard shed light on the gravity of the Island’s housing shortage, and introduced a new initiative by Island churches set to begin next winter to provide emergency housing for those without a home.

Last Wednesday night, when the temperature dropped to 22 degrees on Martha’s Vineyard, more than a dozen people were homeless. A team of volunteers canvassed the Island as part of the annual point-in-time homeless count.

It’s common on the Vineyard to hear of someone couch surfing for a few weeks or struggling through a long transition between rentals, but the exact number of people without homes on the Vineyard remains elusive.

Last Saturday at the Vineyard Haven library, Alan Burt talked about working with the homeless population of Cape Cod for the past 20 years. On Dec. 13, he will spend the night sleeping outdoors with other advocates, in solidarity with the homeless, something he’s done for many years.

Last year, the homeless count in Dukes County found 119 homeless people, the highest in recent memory. But this year the annual measurement of the homeless population on a single night in January came and went with no count recorded.