Homeless shelters across Central Texas are at capacity. Organizers told KEYE TV more and more families with young children are now being forced to live out of their cars.

The Foundation for the Homeless said as the weather heats up, it’s tough for many families to pay their utility bills. And now that school ended on Wednesday for many children, the foundation said they're seeing a dramatic increase of parents and their kids with nowhere else to go but their cars.

“It was a point of desperation,” said single mom Taunia Walker about the month she lived out of her sedan. “I slept in the driver’s side. I had pillows and blankets.”

Walker split from her husband and was recently laid off when she said she was forced to live inside her vehicle.

“I lost my job at the orthodontist office and I could not pay rent and I had to get out and had nowhere else to go,” Walker explained.

“One pay check, one lost job, one illness from becoming homeless; we see that, we hear all that this time of year more than ever,” Executive Director of the Foundation for the Homeless, Sharon Lowe, said about family homelessness increasing in Central Texas.

“They continue on in school, work and congregations,” Lowe explained about the new, invisible face of the homeless. “They're all around us. They don't want to be known as homeless.”

Lowe said an estimated 40 percent of the Austin homeless population is children and families. And many are living out of cars, trucks or vans.

“The average homeless person is 9-years-old or younger,” explained Lowe. “And children, especially babies, can't handle the heat in cars. It takes very little to make a life changing situation.”

“You don't have to accept life that way,” said Walker who told us faith and homeless foundations helped her find a full time job and affordable housing.

She hopes her story of success can help reverse the disturbing trend that she says is unsafe and heartbreaking.

Even though several shelters are at capacity, many can still help with affordable or transitional housing. You can start here, by calling these numbers:

Foundation for the Homeless: (512) 453-6570

Caritas of Austin: (512) 479-4610

Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers: (512) 476-9901

Texas Low Income Housing Information Service: (512) 477-8910