As the suburbs expand, homelessness is moving in

Shortage: Farm communities and small towns become increasingly developed, and high prices fuel a housing crisis.

Sundays, after going to church with his three young boys, Clarence Harper turns to the classified ads. And he prays once more.

Searching through the apartment rentals, Harper tries to have faith that somewhere among the usual $1,000-a-month listings, he will find a miracle in small print.

But it's hard to be optimistic. Despite a steady income from his job as a delivery driver, the 42-year-old single father is homeless and in debt.

Life in this prospering outer suburb has not been easy for Harper. His rent went up with the soaring real-estate market, but his pay did not. Bills kept coming. Soon, Harper was desperate - out of cash, dozing in his delivery van while his sons slept bundled under blankets in back. Their bleak odyssey ended at a homeless shelter.

"I had to swallow my pride," says Harper, lifting 4-year-old Grant on his lap one recent evening and tossing aside the paper. His sons Tavis, 6, and Sterling, 8, are busy doing homework at a small table in their temporary apartment provided by a homeless relief agency.

"When you're in high school, you dream of a house with a picket fence," Harper adds. "Not this."

His is the kind of story that's becoming more familiar in Maryland's outlying suburbs, the depressing downside of a housing boom that has brought suburbanization and new wealth to more rural areas.