Four men at Pine Street Inn's transitional housing program have embarked on an impassioned voter registration drive, signing up 65 of their roommates in the past three weeks. They hope to register hundreds more by Wednesday -- the registration deadline for the Massachusetts primary. And before the general election in November, Roger Chagnon, Dwayne Lopes, Fred Atkinson, and Jim Cronin hope to have
signed up thousands of other homeless voters.

Since December, they have papered their housing facility on Long Island in Boston Harbor with fliers, made spirited presentations at the center's general meeting, arranged for free food and drink, and they have
made a practice of stalking the hallways, urging bunkmates to register.

"There are several in here who are on the fence," Atkinson said, a note of frustration in his voice. "But
we'll get them."

They now want to take their show on the road to other shelters, where they plan to make presentations to as many Boston organizations as possible.

The staff at Pine Street said this is not their first voter registration drive, but this one is the first led by the homeless and so "galvanized."

"They have really taken this on and made it their own," Pine Street spokeswoman Shepley Metcalf said. "We've never had anything like this before."

The effort began last June, when US Senator John F. Kerry spoke at a job-training graduation ceremony at Pine Street Inn. All four men took note when the Democratic presidential candidate pledged to provide more funding for programs to alleviate homelessness and to aid substance abuse recovery.

"He talked about getting back into mainstream society and issues of health care," Lopes recalled.

Five months later, a visit from another politician offered a lesson in political reality. When state
Representative Anthony Petruccelli visited the center on Long Island, where the men are making the
transition from homelessness to mainstream society, they peppered him with questions about state budget cuts in social programs.

"Representative Petruccelli was really honest with them," Metcalf said. "When they asked whether homelessness was even on the radar on Beacon Hill, he said, `Frankly, no. It's not.' "

The reality is, he said, registered voters have a better chance of getting what they want from elected officials, and most registered voters are not homeless.

So the men at Pine Street Inn set out to change that. They enlisted the help of the League of Women Voters, who made a presentation at the shelter and supplied voter registration forms.

Drives to register the homeless to vote have been launched before, notably in Philadelphia. There a
coalition of 25 advocacy groups for homelessness and poverty causes registered some 7,200 homeless
men and women to vote and shuttled between 2,000 and 3,000 of them to the polls on election days. That group has published voters' guides for every election since 1999 and has hosted candidate forums.

It's a model that Pine Street workers are looking toward, but Metcalf said they didn't expect the homeless to lead the effort.

As their self-led drive has taken off, these four men have developed strong opinions about the Democratic candidates.

"I hope Dean doesn't get the nomination," said Atkinson, triggering a debate at the Inn last week. "He's a
poor example. He obviously lost it completely. That's what we learn about, what not to do, how to control our anger."

"Dean won't get nominated. He's too short," shot back Chagnon, a 41-year-old sometime assistant teacher from Braintree. "People like a man of stature. Most presidents are 6 feet and above."

"Kerry, I like his views," said Lopes, a 40-year-old from Brockton who is learning computer skills. "For the situation I'm in, as far as homelessness, he's the better candidate."

"Hillary could beat any of them," Cronin said of Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. "She's the best. If she
 threw her hat in the ring, it would take two weeks. Electability is the key."

Cronin, who says he once was a hopeless "wino in the gutter," plans to vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination. The one-time screen printer and dye cutter believes that President Bush is a "very dangerous man."

"This is why this is so important," Cronin said, pulling at his black windbreaker, a voter registration form
tucked inside.

Pine Street Inn is already arranging transportation to the polls for whomever the men sign up. For the Inn, the drive offers a double reward: hope to clientele by participating in mainstream society and a chance to draw
 the attention of politicans who control much of the shelter's funding.

"Now, you've got 65 homeless people on an island in Boston Harbor that bean counters in Boston are
going to want to know about," Atkinson said. "They're going to want to know what we're doing out here.' "

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.