Pedro Rodriguez, Richard Poole, Jackie Epson and Ivan Romero walk under the Second Avenue bridge hoping to get people who are sleeping on the streets to go with them to a shelter. CHARLOTTE SOUTHERN/FOR THE MIAMI HERALD Chapter 4 gallery

Minutes before midnight, at the base of a sprawling mahogany tree, Jackie Epson found what she sought resting among soda cans and condom wrappers: a girl, not older than 20, bundled in sheets and scratching her arms.

The girl jumped as Epson stooped beside her. "Leave me alone!''

Then she ran off, disappearing across the train tracks under Interstate 95 near Northwest 14th Street and First Avenue.

"Baby girl, you're gonna get sick of us, because we love you!'' Epson hollered after her.

For the past year, Epson, 42, and the rest of the city of Miami's Homeless Outreach Team have worked this night shift, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., trying to get help for people like the frantic girl.

They crisscross the city in two white vans, searching under expressway bridges and checking parks and bus stops. After some coaxing, they're able to transport many of those they find to shelters. Others, like the girl, remain elusive.

The outreach team, called "the Green Shirts'' for their green polo tops, was started in 1992, but outreach workers decided just last year to begin the late-night shift. That's when the homeless congregate in the largest numbers.

Many are found on street corners in Wynwood and Overtown, under the I-95 and Second Avenue bridges and in Bayfront Park. Last year, the team processed 4,500 placements into shelters, drawing praise from homeless advocates.

"Assisting the homeless has been a countywide effort, and the Green Shirts have been one of the keys to our success," said David Raymond, head of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust.

The group members' success may be rooted in their connection to the streets.

"She's me," Epson says of the girl under the mahogany tree. She surmised that the girl's incessant scratching probably came from sores left by heroin needles.

"I used to be her," Epson sighed. In parked cars and behind abandoned buildings, Epson says, she sold herself to support a crack addiction. But the tricks ended on the night of March 21, 1994, she said.

That night, Epson said, she robbed a john of $2,800 inside a white delivery truck along a South Miami-Dade side street, and bought some crack rocks.

But her usual high was interrupted by a nightmare after she passed out. Epson said she saw a grave, with her name on the tombstone. She went into hiding and finally got clean after several failed attempts at rehabilitation. She joined the Green Shirts in 1998.

More trouble came for Epson in 2002, when her mother, Geralyn Graham, became a suspect in the disappearance of Rilya Wilson, a foster child who had been in Graham's care. The child neglect case that resulted led to reforms in Florida's child welfare system.

As part of the resulting investigation, police charged Epson with fraud, saying she had defrauded a housing assistance program of $253. She took a plea deal and served one year of probation. Her mother was later charged with murder in Rilya Wilson's case.

"Jackie has changed her life around, and she's a postive influence in the community," said Lazaro Trueba, Miami's assistant administrator of homeless programs.

"God gave me a chance to be a blessing," says Epson, now the Green Shirts' coordinator. She is currently studying human services at Miami Dade College.

The 20 or so members of her street team share similiar tales of pain and redemption. There's Nick "Fred Flinstone'' Vasquez, 37, a former addict whom Epson calls her "enforcer," and Richard "Pretty Boy'' Poole, 46, a former addict and aspiring writer from Detroit.

"The faces may change, but the game remains the same," Poole says.

Curtis Jackson, 48, offers insight from his dope days on Northwest First Avenue. Ivan Romero, 32, quiet and reserved, is Epson's assistant, always at her side and driving while she plots the team's next pick-up point.

While Romero drove on a recent night, Trueba, 46 , discussed the group's methods. For example: Questions like "Are you on drugs?" are better replaced with "When's the last time you used?" he noted. Team members never approach drifters alone, and they avoid those who appear violent. Epson says several members have been assaulted in recent years, but no member has been seriously hurt.

"Getting them in the van is the main goal," Trueba said as Romero parked near the Lawson E. Thomas courthouse. There, snoring atop a flattened cardboard box, 79-year-old Lorenzo Jackson slept until Epson roused him.

"Hey, handsome," she said.

"Look, I'm just fine out here," Jackson said.

"But wouldn't a nice, warm bed be better?" Epson cooed.

After several minutes pondering the question, the old man, donning a black Holiday Express baseball cap and wearing an orange polo shirt with brown khaki pants, stood and leaned against the bus stop.

"I guess it don't sound too bad," he said.

But before leaving, he folded the box and stashed it behind a garbage bin in the adjacent parking lot. So "it'll be there'' when he returns, he explained.

The fact that the Green Shirts have encountered Jackson before -- as they have many of the homeless people they see each night -- is a problem officials have struggled to solve. Without proper monitoring and medical attention, many of those who are picked up go right back out on the street, Trueba said.

While the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust reports that the county's homeless population has declined from 7,000 in 1993 to 1,600 currently, efforts to shrink the numbers of people Trueba calls "chronically'' homeless have fallen short.

"Most of our current homeless population are either mentally ill or addicted to drugs," Trueba said. "It can be frustrating seeing the same people over and over again."

Epson has seen the girl who hangs out near the mahogany tree for the past several months. She usually runs when the vans pull up.

"She's new out here; hopefully we can reach her before it's too late," Epson said.

About 1 a.m., the group arrived at Bayfront Park, where the bay breeze and secluded dock create an oasis for the homeless. Under the glow of lights from the InterContinental Hotel, Edwin Santana and about 30 others slept on flattened cardboard boxes.

Several dashed across the park. Trueba explained that many undocumented migrants mistake the white vans for immigration officials.

"Jackie, ya'll come out here at 1 in the morning now?" asked Santana, 48, who Epson says was her former client. A gangly six feet tall, he wears an orange kufi on his head with a tattered beige T-shirt and short jean pants. He calls himself the "president'' of the Bayfront homeless group.

"Well, folks, let's go! They got me up. Ya'll get on the bus!'' he shouted to the others.

"We're gonna put you in treatment," Epson said.

"OK, but don't put me in no joke. . . . You know I'm always too smart for those counselors," Santana said.

After 20 failed attempts at rehab, Santana said, he has remained an addict.

For now, Epson says she's content with the occasional success story.

"That's why we're out here," she said, glancing over at Romero, the van driver.

Eight years ago, Epson found Romero sleeping on the sidewalk outside Camillus House, a shelter at 336 NW Fifth St., and coaxed him into a treatment center. After a week he relapsed.

"He said, 'Jackie, you gotta put me somewhere,' '' Epson said.

Sticking by him through the withdrawals and his eventual success, Epson offered him a job with the Green Shirts. Now with a wife and three daughters, Romero has become Epson's confidante of sorts.

"She saved my life," Romero said.