Carey House not one size fits all solution for local homeless population

LACONIA — Deborah Brown's life began to slowly unravel about two years ago when a degenerative disk disease rendered her unable to maintain steady employment. Unable to work and gradually slipping into depression because of the pain, her family life fell apart. After her ex-husband took custody of her minor child, she didn't have enough money to survive.

"Everything was always a challenge for me, but this was too much to take," said the 30 something blond whose curly blond hair is tied back in a pony tail.

"I've landed in the hospital three times with panic attacks," she said, adding that for a short period of time she pretty much gave up. "Nobody cared."

A Bristol native, she spent time in the Bridge House shelter in Plymouth, had a small apartment in Laconia until she had a beef with the landlord, and was on her was to a shelter in Concord when she was involved in a car accident that damaged the only resource she had left.

For reasons that aren't clear, she was asked to leave Belknap County's only homeless shelter, the Salvation Army Carey House.

She found herself alone with no place to go.

Brown's story is not unique to Laconia, to Belknap County, to New Hampshire or to the nation.

In Laconia their only shelter is the Carey House. There is limited assistance available through the Laconia Police Relief and Family Association and some resources from the faith-based community and private charities. The rest comes from either the local, state or federal government.

"The Carey House, like other homeless shelters in New Hampshire, has rules in place to ensure that residents are safe, enforces policies that support communal living and develops protocols that advance the goal of living a responsible and productive life," wrote Carey House Director Susan Lunt in a January 26 letter to The Daily Sun.

She said the greater question is, knowing that living in a communal structure environment like the Carey House is not for everyone, what happens when the only shelter for miles is, for one reason or another, unworkable.

What Laconia doesn't have said Lunt, in an earlier sit-down interview with The Daily Sun and in her letter to the editor, is a urban shelter. "Literally a warm place to sleep for the night," she said.

"We don't have that in Belknap County," Lunt said, adding that if the city had such a shelter, she believes on desperately cold and snowy nights there could "easily have 100 people from the greater Laconia area who would show up.

The closest cold-weather shelter is in Concord. It is open from December 1 to April 1 at the South Congregational Church and is the "literal" warm bed at night.

Police Chief Chris Adams sees homelessness first hand. For him it's up close and personal.

Chief now for about a year, Adams was a patrol officer, a sergeant and a lieutenant and in a small city like Laconia with relatively small police department he was, until last year, on regular and routine patrol. As chief he is an active member of the Homeless Coalition.

He knows most of the people in the city who are chronically homeless and said their issues are as different as each individual who makes up the "core" group of homeless in Laconia.

"The Carey House just doesn't work for everyone," he said, noting it is a sober, drug-free house, it has curfews, rules and regulations, and for some people, a structured environment is just not possible.

He said the city has tent cities and camps and these camps can be violent and dangerous. Earlier this past month, a homeless woman was charged for stabbing a homeless man in one of the camps, off Court Street. He said his officers respond to those types of situations as needed.

He said the most frequent reports are of a nuisance variety like public urination and defecation, trash and garbage problems, and shoplifting and beer thefts.

While not necessarily hardened crimes, Adams said it's still not acceptable to have people sleeping in the parking lots and in the stairwells of the downtown parking garage.

About 18 months ago and while he was a lieutenant, Adams said he participated in a problem-oriented-policing (POP) project headed by Sgt. Dennis Ashley where a team of police officers — consisting of patrol officers from each shift, a dispatcher, a detective, a lieutenant and a department secretary — made an attempt to identify every homeless person in the city and make him or her aware of any services that may meet his or her needs.

What they found was staggering, but to a police officer, not surprising.

Many suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, many were victims of chronic physical and/or sexual abuse often times from early childhood. Some were registered sex offenders who, in most cases, are denied services and many of them suffer from chronic and untreated mental and physical disabilities.

Many have criminal records that are often a bar to employment and housing. Most are without dependable transportation.

He said sooner or later, most if not all of the homeless in the city will have some contact with his officers and he said his officers are continually reaching out to them to offer help if needed.

"We do welfare checks and make it known if there are empty beds at the Carey House, especially when the weather is truly bad," said Adams.

The department distributes pamphlets that explains programs available to the homeless and, in critical situations, will dip into the police relief fund that comes from private donations, and put someone up at a local hotel and pay for transportation to the cold-weather shelter in Concord.

"But it's a social issue and it's not ever going to go away completely," he said.

"All counties in all communities are feeling a tremendous amount of pressure from sustained economic stresses," said Jack Terrell, president of the Lakes Region United Way. "But the only way to deal with it is to solve the problem collectively in our own backyard."

While the United Way coordinates much of the charitable giving in the Lakes Region, Terrell said there are a huge number of other agencies who hold and contribute some piece of the puzzle.

At the core, said Terrell, is the government, including the local municipal welfare departments. Other agencies, like Genesis Behavioral Health and the Community Action Program are there to help people navigate what came be an administratively frustrating and often confusing journey.

He said Belknap County is the same as the rest of the counties in the country but also is unique in its own way.

"We're a seasonal community that has a lot of part-time jobs that are impacted by the weather that impacts people's ability to stay stable," he said.

And the government, said Terrell is "the true safety net." "The only way to deal with it. . . to solve the problem . . .is to work collectively in our own back yard."

Without support from public agencies and a few good friends, things may have turned out differently and tragically for Brown. When she found herself sleeping in her car this past Christmas Eve, she said she reached down and found one last reserve of personal strength.

She reached out and a friend took her in temporarily.

With public agency help, she has taken back some control of her life. She re-engaged with her counselor for treatment of her depression.

Through the Belknap-Merrimack County Community Action Program, she said she will get enough from disability assistance and Social Security to move from her car and/or her friend's couch to the apartment.A different agency worked with a landlord to provide a security deposit and first month's rent.

She will have about $780 a month to pay her rent and expenses and food stamps. "I can live on that," she said with confidence.