Morgan Crayton is 17, homeless and new to Charlotte.

He's also lucky.

This summer, for the first time, the Salvation Army's Center of Hope shelter for women and children is refusing to split up siblings by gender.

That means Morgan is allowed to stay with his mother in the shelter, rather then being sent to a different agency.

It's a policy change that follows news of Mecklenburg County's 36 percent jump in homeless families last year - the second-highest jump among the 26 cities included in that national survey.

"Honestly, I don't think my mother would have moved in, if I couldn't be with her," says Morgan, who moved from St. Louis in March.

"She's been through too much, raising three kids on her own. All we have is each other, and her love for me is unconditional."

Morgan is right about one thing, says his mom, Alvonia Crayton.

"We may have slept outside, rather than split up," she says. "We sat down and made the decision to come here together, based on our circumstances. Children need their parents at a time like this."

Deronda Metz, director of the Center of Hope, believes that's true, but it was a new in federal funding guideline that prompted the policy change.

In all, the center could have lost $85,000 in emergency shelter dollars at a time when nightly crowds are well above capacity.

Charlotte has a severe shortage of emergency shelter space for intact families. So standard practice at the Center of Hope - and many other shelters for women and children - called for dividing most families based on gender and age.

Moms and kids under 15 were allowed to stay.

Fathers 18 and over went to the Men's Shelter of Charlotte, and sons 15 to 18 were sent to The Relatives, another Charlotte nonprofit.

The new guideline requires women's shelters to take in boys 15, 16 and 17.

At the Center of Hope, they're staying in a small 10-bed boy's dorm created out of an old library.

It's already crowded, which has become the norm at the shelter. Even before the center had to take in teenage boys, women were sleeping on the dining room floor, says Metz.

"I'm not sad the policy changed. The bottom line is kids need to be with their moms," says Metz.

"Plus, a lot of those kids ended up sleeping in cars, because their moms refused to move in without them."

Prior to 2004, the shelter didn't even accept boys over 12. But Metz thought that was too tough for the moms, so she raised the age to 15.

Turning away older boys was necessary, she says, because the dorm-style atmosphere made it tough to keep teenagers from engaging in inappropriate behavior.

The boys also needed a different type of therapy.

"There's a lot of anger: Anger that they have to stay in a shelter, and anger that their mom couldn't provide a place to stay," Metz says.

New programs are now being added for the older boys, including a career development class with job shadowing and community service.

It attracted 15 boys this week, says Anthony Buckson, unit director for the Boys & Girls Club at the shelter.

"We're trying to bring stability to their life, but you never know how long they'll be here," he says. "My hope is that they'll leave knowing they can make a difference. It only takes one person, and they could be that one person."

One of the boys working with Buckson is 17-year-old Ray, who dreams of designing weaponry for the military when he's older.

His mother is due to have a baby next month, and he is prepared to step in and take care of his three younger siblings in her absence.

Until then, Ray is helping out with shelter programs that help younger children.

"What my mom is going through now ain't easy. She needs my help, so I'm grateful the shelter changed its policy," he says.

"Family is the core of everything. Without it, you are a walking shell."