Two members of the Family Counseling Center staff, Shawn Sando, chief financial officer, and Randy Ray, chief operations officer, are in Jefferson City for the Govern-or's Committee to End Homelessness activities to commemorate National Home-lessness Awareness Week activities at the state capitol.

Monday thousands of shoes, in all styles and sizes, were on display at the Missouri Capitol -- a visual aid to represent the estimated 26,100 people who are homeless each day in the state.

The Governor's Committee to End Homelessness collected about 2,000 pairs of shoes, each intended to represent about 10 homeless families. The sneakers and sandals, hiking boots and high heels were displayed on the Capitol steps and inside the Rotunda.

A brief ceremony highlighting efforts to help the homeless was held inside the Capitol, because of the rainy, 40-degree weather outside.

Dianna Moore, executive director of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare, said people ought to feel ashamed that others have to live outside in such weather.

She said public policies such as Medicaid cuts and proposed reductions in federal food stamp spending drive people toward homelessness, although Moore added that she knew of no cases where Missourians became homeless specifically because of the state's recent Medicaid reductions.

A 2001 survey by the association found that Missouri's homeless shelters housed an average of 16,425 people on any given day, up from 11,500 in 1998. But the group has not done a similar survey since then.

The estimate of 26,100 homeless Missourians daily was derived from the number of people at homeless and domestic violence shelters, plus estimates of those on the streets. Also included in the estimate are those without their own homes who temporarily stay at the homes of friends and relatives or in their vehicles, said Liz Hagar-Mace, chairwoman of the governor's committee.

The state committee was created in the 1980s, she said, and works with public and private entities to try to prevent homelessness.