‘Safety net’ gaps foster frustration in region

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Laura Blanchard was hanging on, but just barely.

“I’m frustrated and depressed,” she admitted in talking about the latest wrinkle in her housing problem.

Diagnosed as a child with post-traumatic stress disorder, Blanchard, now 23, was trying desperately to keep from being homeless.

Her predicament illustrates the safety nets in the system as well as the ways people fall through the gaps.

After spending a number of weeks on two different occasions at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, Blanchard found an apartment in March 1999 through Shelter Plus Care, a rental subsidy program for people with mental illness.

Administered through the city health and welfare department, Shelter Plus Care proved a godsend for Blanchard, paying her entire $350 monthly rent from the time she moved in until last April.

But once she landed a part-time job and became responsible for allocating 30 percent of her income, or around $160, toward rent, things began to go downhill.

Blanchard began reneging on her payments and missing meetings with her caseworker and with the health and welfare department.

A notice of eviction sent her scurrying to her mother for financial help.

When that didn’t pan out, she appealed to her close friend, Marie Bouchard of Bangor, who suggested she apply for general assistance.

Told initially that she was ineligible for the monthly voucher, Blanchard ultimately was able to obtain help from the city.

But the young woman’s travails weren’t over. Unless she came up with $565 in back rent, she still could be evicted.

It was in the face of this latest setback that Blanchard sat at her kitchen table a couple of weeks ago, disconsolately smoking a cigarette and trying to figure out her next move.

A feeling of abandonment came over her. “I’ve always had people helping me out,” she said mournfully.

But Bouchard refused to look on the dark side. “This is all going to work out,” she told her friend. “The system is working – with the right people saying the right things and doing the right things” help should arrive.

Her parting advice to Blanchard: contact the local churches.

The Rev. Frank Murray of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bangor wasn’t surprised Bouchard saw his parish as a last resort.

“There’s always been a place for churches to try to address those needs that the welfare system doesn’t address,” he said.

Housing shortage hurts

Reflecting recently on those gaps, housing experts said the rising cost of housing, a scarcity of government subsidies, substandard housing and the propensity to get lost in the system may be some of the reasons people find themselves homeless.

The cost of housing is spiraling upward because of a shortage of apartments as well as single-family homes, according to Loren Cole of Bangor’s Housing and Urban Development Office. The state is shy between 20,000 and 25,000 units, he said.

Anyone can find him or herself vulnerable.

A woman and her autistic granddaughter were forced out of the building where they had lived for years because the new owners decided to convert it back to a single-family home, Cole recalled.

Homeless for a while, the woman eventually found a new rental.

“But it was a difficult search and it took a long time,” Cole said. “We learn of cases like this all the time. People who don’t miss a rental payment – who don’t do anything wrong – but are still forced into homelessness.”

With the current housing crunch, even those with an Section 8 voucher, a subsidy for low-income people, may be hard-pressed to find an apartment that meets HUD’s affordability guidelines.

“Landlords are in the driver’s seat – any place that has a roof and a door can be rented,” said Cole.

The dearth of affordable “worker-class” or starter homes has created a bottleneck along the housing continuum, according to Bangor Health and Welfare Department Director Mary Anne Chalila.

People tend to move from the streets to lower-income apartments, to nicer apartments, then to starter homes, she said.

But while the city is seeing a proliferation of single-family houses in the $175,000-$250,000 range, nobody’s building houses in the $75,000 range.

“If people can’t afford to move out of their apartments into houses, nobody can move up through the ladder,” Chalila said.

Decent, affordable one-bedroom and efficiency apartments also are needed, according to Chalila. Built mostly for families, subsidized housing projects typically have two- and three-bedroom units, she said.

The limited number of federal housing subsidies the state receives also plays a part in keeping people homeless.

“Maine has a hard time competing against jurisdictions with a higher population and a congressional delegation that has more seniority,” Chalila said.

The HUD policy that prohibits people convicted of violent crime or illegal drug activity from gaining access to subsidized housing should be reviewed, according to Kerry Sack, Region III housing coordinator for the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services.

“Each person should be looked at case by case so that those who have been in recovery and have been substance-free and working hard should have a chance and not be punished for the rest of their lives,” she said.

Substandard housing may not get the same attention as the closing of wards at Bangor Mental Health Institute, but it forces people into the streets just the same, according to Stephen Mooers of Penquis CAP, the Maine State Housing Authority’s Section 8 provider for Penobscot, Piscataquis, Knox and Waldo counties.

Sometimes a landlord refuses to make repairs and the building is placarded, he said.

In other instances, conscientious parents decide they can’t continue to have their children live with faulty wiring, lead paint or the threat of carbon monoxide fumes.

Since most of the state’s chronic homeless have multiple problems and likely have received assistance from a number of agencies at one time or another, they may get “lost in the swirl,” said Tom Ewell, president of the Maine Coalition for the Homeless and director of the Maine Council of Churches.

The system may bump people from the Department of Corrections to DMHMRSAS to the Department of Human Services when caseworkers don’t want to deal with them anymore or figure they’ve done all they can, according to Ewell.

“We need to do a better job of pooling resources,” he said. “There has to be some accountability.”

Demand outweighs supply

With Bangor the service center for this part of the state, the demand for help easily can outweigh the supply, according to Leigh Wiley, an intensive case manager and outreach supervisor with Community Health and Counseling Services in Bangor.

The $2,400 annual allocation that the Federal Emergency Management Agency gives Bangor “can run out real fast, so I really have to stretch it,” said Wiley, who provides housing information to people in jails, shelters and hospitals.

Closing gaps and keeping people off the streets takes a holistic approach, according to Chalila, who laments a shortage of psychiatrists, dentists who take Medicaid and case managers.

Without a caseworker to implement a service plan or a psychiatrist to write a prescription, a person can’t stabilize and may have trouble maintaining an apartment.

If a dentist isn’t monitoring how some psychotropic drugs can affect teeth adversely, a person’s appearance could diminish the chances of finding a job.

“Everything’s tied together because you’re looking at a whole person,” Chalila said.

But ending up on the street doesn’t necessarily signal a gap in the system.

At some point, people have to take responsibility for their actions, Chalila said.

Park Woods, Bangor’s two-year transitional housing project for the homeless, teaches people how to do that.

Tenants meet regularly with director Claire Bolduc to discuss budgeting, educational plans, job searches and personal goals.

“Part of living here is that people have to put up with me nagging – we hold people accountable for every darn thing,” Bolduc said with a grin.

Between 82 percent and 85 percent of the tenants leave with their lives in good order – in school, working, or on their way to buying a home.

“We’re amazed at how brave and serious and persistent human beings are and how much energy they’re willing to put in to making their lives better,” Bolduc said.

Park Woods “was a great opportunity to get my life back together,” said Hector Valcarcel, 36, who has lived on the streets at various times in his life.

Single men like Valcarcel make up 63 percent of the homeless across the state and 85 percent of the homeless nationwide.

After spending three months at the Park Woods men’s shelter, Valcarcel moved into an apartment and began relearning life skills.

Most of all he needed to understand how to relate to people.

“Living on the streets all you think about is yourself – it’s survival,” he said.

Now a culinary arts student at Eastern Maine Technical College in Bangor, Valcarcel runs the Park Woods men’s shelter where he listens to stories reminiscent of his own.

Advising the men of their options, Valcarcel sometimes feels as though he’s made a difference.

Other days he watches helplessly as they walk out the door only to be swallowed up by the streets again.