Homeless share family Christmas at shelter

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ELLSWORTH – By Saturday afternoon, two days before Christmas, Dennis Curtis hadn’t gotten any calls from family or friends.

No holiday wishes. No hope-you’re-doing-OKs.

Nothing.

Of course, he wasn’t really expecting any either.

“It’s really a sad story,” Curtis said Saturday at the Emmaus Center, a homeless shelter in downtown Ellsworth where he has been staying since Sept. 22. “Usually, you think the holiday means family, so it’s going to be hard not being around any.”

Curtis, 40, is one of 20 people living at the Hancock County shelter this Christmas, and one of hundreds throughout the state who will spend the holiday season homeless.

While some at the Emmaus Center will leave Christmas Day to be with family, many like Curtis don’t have that option.

“My family knows where I am, but I don’t expect them to come visit. I don’t expect even a phone call,” he said.

Despite his hard luck, the Belfast native doesn’t have a shred of self-pity in his voice.

“We’re all a big family here, I guess,” Curtis said.

Mary Gifford, 55, also will spend today at the Emmaus Center .

She’s been living at the shelter since Oct. 18 and, like Curtis, has the kind of attitude that seems out of place for a woman without a home.

“That’s the only way to go through the experience of being homeless, just to go with the flow,” Gifford said Saturday at the shelter. “If you dwell on the past, you’re sinking your own ship. You have to be able to deal with adversity.”

Sister Lucille MacDonald, administrator of the 14-year-old Emmaus Center, said the holiday spirit that reverberates throughout the halls at the shelter has made the season a little easier.

“I guess it’s good that the shelter is here, but also sad because there are so many in need,” she said Saturday. “This is a wonderful group.”

The inside of the Emmaus Center, a stately brick building at the corner of Main and Water streets downtown, is decorated traditionally but sparsely for the holidays.

On Saturday, many of the residents spent the afternoon in the common area, watching a movie while lights from a large Christmas tree twinkled close by.

There were gifts under the tree, many donated from area businesses, churches and individuals.

“This year, I have seen the most donations ever for our Christmas program,” MacDonald said.

The nonprofit shelter relies heavily on the charity of the Ellsworth community, and its administrator said that benevolence is never more visible than during the holidays.

“People certainly have the holiday spirit in this area, and the shelter is very grateful,” she said. “There is no way for us to touch as many people who have touched us.”

Aside from donations to help the 20 residents living at the shelter, the Emmaus Center coordinates an Adopt-A-Family program. This year, 160 families representing 700 people have received assistance during the holidays, MacDonald said.

Amid all the charity and warmth, though, Christmas remains a time for reflection, and the reality of homelessness isn’t always easy to shake.

“I’m not really used to being by myself. I’ve always been in foster care or a group home,” said Nicole Brooks, 19, who has been living at the Emmaus Center since Oct. 31.

Brooks hopes to see her 13-year-old sister on Christmas Day, but she said that since she’s been at the shelter, her family hasn’t been in touch.

“Nobody calls me. When I call them, I tell them all the time, ‘You know, I get really depressed just sitting here and having no one call,'” she said.

And so, like Curtis and Gifford, Brooks turns to her “family” at the Emmaus Center.

“It really does become a family of sorts. I never really had a father figure and some of the people here are like father figures to me,” she said. “And it’s nice to know that I’m not alone.”

A majority of the residents at the Ellsworth shelter want something for Christmas more than the gifts that have been generously donated: They want a better life for themselves.

Brooks has applied to the Penobscot Job Corps program in Bangor, where she hopes to take classes in culinary arts.

“It’s a good place, don’t get me wrong,” she said of the Emmaus Center. “Everyone has treated me so good, but I need to get out of here and do some good for myself.”

Gifford, who has never driven, is working toward getting her driver’s license, then an apartment in Ellsworth.

Curtis, too, is close to moving out of the shelter. Since coming to the Emmaus Center in September, he has a full-time job and a car.

Next month, he plans to move into an apartment thanks in part to assistance from the Maine State Housing Authority’s Rental Assistance Coupon Plus program.

“Things are starting to fall into place,” he said.

As for his family members, who still haven’t contacted him, Curtis can only look forward.

“Everyone messes up from time to time. I landed here,” he said. “But I think everything happens for a reason. This is a start over and if I have to start over here in Ellsworth, great.”