The seasonal funding that kept Edmonton's winter shelters up and running during the coldest months has run out, leaving hundreds of people scrambling to find somewhere else to sleep starting Monday night.

The closures mean 400 fewer spaces for the city's estimated 2,600 homeless through the spring and summer.

Shelter beds in Edmonton's Herb Jamieson Centre.
(CBC News)

Shannon Kilgour, an expectant mother with a crack addiction who showers and eats at the shelters, told CBC News it's hard to find similar services during the spring and summer months.

"You'd think that there would be shelters and services open for the homeless all year round."

To stay warm at night, Kilgour says she will try sneaking into laundry rooms in apartment buildings or in the vestibule between doorways in businesses. During the summer, it's also common to find make-shift camps set up in the river valley.

Daytime warming shelters are also closing, along with the Boyle Street warming van, which drives the homeless to shelters.

Mario Lacelle is working on one of the pipelines that fuel Alberta's boom, but he can't even afford a place to live so he started couch surfing.

"I was staying at a friend's and I was kind of disrupting their social life, him and his wife, so I told her I can just leave," he said.

"I guess I'll have to invest in a sleeping bag and a tent."

Meanwhile, organizers of Edmonton's 2006-2007 winter emergency response plan will be crossing their fingers over the summer, hoping for more money to run the program and the van again next winter.