Editor’s note: This is part two of a two-part series about homelessness in the Monadnock region. Most of the homeless people in the Antrim-Peterborough-Jaffrey area region are elderly, with disabilities or significant health problems, according to data gathered by Eastern Monadnock Housing Security Council. Many of them live in their cars, tents, or improvised shelters outside, and some have to deal with chronic health problems, such as dialysis or cancer, without access to proper medical care. The issue is not limited to older and single people, as there are also parents with children who sleep in their cars or in the woods. The lack of stable housing is a growing problem in the region, and many people are not able to get help from the welfare office because they have been homeless for a long time.
Two Peterborough churches opened emergency overnight shelters this winter to help house the region’s growing homeless population — and both say the need far exceeded what they could provide.
Churches step up to provide emergency shelter
Alusic-Bingham said creating emergency shelters for the Peterborough area is something the coalition has been working on for years.
“There is no shelter space, and there was such desperate need, and we thought, what about reaching out to some of these churches that may have some extra space, or own some other buildings?” Alusic-Bingham said. “We were seeing people sleeping in their cars on the coldest nights of the year; these people are at risk of freezing to death, and we thought, there has be some indoor space somewhere where people can get out of the cold.”
In the past few years, the Peterborough United Methodist Church, the Monadnock Congregational Church, and a few other churches in the region opened shelter space in undisclosed locations for the safety of guests and volunteers. The PUMC and the MCC provide shelter space for adults and single people, while other churches have space specifically for families and children.
According to Christine Robidoux, a board member of EMHSC and a volunteer for the United Methodist Church in Peterborough, most guests at the emergency shelters stay for just one night, but in a few circumstances this winter, the churches paid for a person to stay in a hotel until the shelter space could be staffed again, or until it warmed up enough for a person to return to sleeping in their vehicle.
“One of our guests had recently had a medical procedure. They could not recover from the procedure living in their car, and we can’t be open every night, so we put that person up in a hotel for a week so they could recover from their procedure,” Robidoux said. “We had another person who was very, very sick when she came in, and as soon as she walked in, we said, ‘This person cannot go back to her car tomorrow night.’ She was an elderly person, and she had pneumonia, and it was below zero outside. We put her in a hotel for a few days until the agency she was working with was able to get her town welfare department to assist her.”
People seeking emergency shelter must have a referral through one of the five agencies in the EMHSC. The shelters are not walk-in, and are open on an emergency basis only.
“We need to know that the guests are working with an agency. People can’t just come to the church looking for a shelter. It is very hard to tell people we can’t help them, but the space can only be open one night at a time, because we rely on volunteers,” Robidoux said.
Both Robidoux and Paul Lucas, a volunteer for Monadnock Congregational Church, say that while their churches help as much as they can, the legal requirements of providing an emergency shelter are challenging for small congregations.
“We need two volunteers whenever we have a guest, and always need one female volunteer and one male volunteer, and we need that on every shift. Some people have to do the 12 to 4 am shift, and that is very hard on older people or people who work,” Lucas said. “If you’ve stayed up all night and you have a job, you can’t do that two or three nights in a row. So we are open two nights a week, maybe three nights a week.”
The PUMC had eight requests for overnight shelter in a span of a few weeks in January and February. The emergency shelter at the MCC, which started this year, hosted six overnight guests this year; four single adults and one couple.
“We have had to turn people away, which is very hard. It’s hard when people have pets, or if they have mental health or addiction issues, because we are not trained to handle those issues,” Lucas said.
Emergency shelter volunteers are required by law to have first aid training, and both churches are planning to require mental health training for volunteers as well.
Volunteers from the congregations cook a hot dinner and breakfast for shelter guests, and both shelters offer free supply closets with hygienic and personal supplies such as soap, toothbrushes, and sanitary products. The shelter space provided by the MCC offers showers, inflatable mattresses, and two hot meals.
snack cabinet. Credit: JESSECA TIMMONS/Ledger-Transcript
“The guests have everything packed in their cars. It was nice to be able to offer them showers,” Lucas said.
Lucas and Robidoux say their entire congregations come together to support the overnight shelters, whether it’s by volunteering to stay overnight with guests; cooking or buying groceries, donating supplies or clothing, or cleaning and organizing the shelter space.
Guests at the MCC can access the church’s large clothes closet, which is open to the public.
“It was nice to be able to offer people clean clothes. Some people were like wow, this is the first time I have had clean clothes in a while,” Lucas said.
The churches also purchase gas cards for people to be able to run their car engines on very cold nights, as well as grocery gift cards. The churches also provide small items like hand warmers and wool socks which will help people returning to sleep in their cars.
“Wool socks were a huge thing. We had people who had been wearing the same wool socks for a few days, and they needed some fresh socks,” Lucas said.
Coalition formed to address housing needs
The Eastern Monadnock Housing Security Council is a joint effort of Community Action Partnership of Hillsborough and Rockingham Counties (formerly Southern New Hampshire Services); the Grapevine Family & Community Resource Center, in Antrim; Shelter from the Storm, in Jaffrey; the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter, in Peterborough; and the River Center, in Peterborough.
The five agencies came together in 2021 to try to find new ways to assist the growing number of people in the region who have lost their housing.
“We were getting calls from the same people, and we were all doing the same work, and it became very inefficient, because we’re all doing the same things for the same person,” Robidoux said.
Robidoux approached her church, Peterborough United Methodist Church, about the possibility of creating an emergency overnight shelter after taking part in a monthly call about the acute needs of unhoused people in the region with the River Center.
“There is nothing like this available in our region; there are no emergency shelters. So we voted, and we raised money, and we got volunteers, and we created an overnight shelter in a space that was available,” Robidoux said.
The churches initially planned to offer emergency shelter just in the winter, but then they learned that there was a need for emergency shelter throughout the year.
“There may be people fleeing violent situations. There are people who need help all year round,” Robidoux said.
Lucas said this was the MCC’s first winter providing emergency shelter space, and now that winter has passed, his church will “take guests as they come.”
“We had five referrals in January and February, and we definitely had to turn people away, because we rely on volunteers to staff the space,” Lucas said. “In the warm weather, people can stay in their cars, or they get referred to campgrounds. But if people need emergency help in the summer, we will try to help.”
Lucas said the congregation had hoped to have an apartment for transitional and emergency housing at the church, a large building which was formerly used as a bed and breakfast, but were unable to complete the project due to cost and changes in zoning.
According to Alusic-Bingham, other churches in the region provide emergency shelter space specifically for families with children. The locations of all shelters are confidential for the safety of the guests.
Coalition calls on towns to step up help for homeless
The EMHSC recently sent a letter to the Select Boards of all the towns in the coalition’s catchment area, outlining the acute need for a warming center and overnight shelter.
While church-run emergency shelters provide as much help as they can, volunteers agree that the shelters are unable to meet the existing need in the region.
“There really should be a warming center available in our area, 24/7,” Robidoux said. “Our towns should really be coming together to come up with a solution. There is a significant population whose lives are at risk because towns won’t help. People could freeze to death because there is nowhere to go and no one wants to deal with it.”
Lucas says the need for shelter is far greater than what churches can provide, particularly in cold weather.
“It would be great if the towns could have something official. Even just a warming center, so people can come in and warm up during the day,” he said. “In the summer, people need a cooling center as well, especially elderly people who can’t tolerate the heat and have nowhere to go.”
Robidoux, who drafted the letter to the Select Boards on behalf of the EMHSC, said she knows it is asking a lot.
“The towns don’t necessarily want to take this on. It’s a responsibility. But the churches just cannot meet the need. There has to be another option, especially when it has been as cold as it was. The most vulnerable people in the region are at risk of dying in weather like we had this winter, and there is nowhere for them to go,” she said.
Lucas said that the situation “seems to be getting worse.”
“We wonder how much worse the situation will get if the economy doesn’t improve,” Lucas said.
Alusic-Bingham says that with times being difficult, she senses “compassion fatigue” from the public.
“I work with people who need housing every day, and I hear their stories every day. My sense is that the public has lost the will to hear these stories, and they have lost the will to support this kind of work, because everyone has their own problems,” Alusic-Bingham said. “Everyone wants to believe that someone else is taking care of it, but what we have right now is a desperate need for emergency shelters for people who live in this area, and consider this area to be their home,” Alusic-Bingham said.
Last year, the EMHSC was awarded a grant from the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority. The funds, in the form of $150,000 in tax credits, are designated to help build the group’s organizational capacity and to support improved outreach and coordination with other housing agencies.
“We’re wanting to really more formally organize ourselves. It’s a lot on our agencies to have to manage when someone is in a transitional shelter and still trying to find a place to live. We’re hoping to hire an administrator to help manage the caseload, to do interviews, to advocate at the state level, to talk to other housing coalitions across the state, and to raise money, because the money pays for security deposits for people to move into an apartment; it can pay for a hotel for someone who is critically at risk,” Robidoux said.
For now, the coalition is hoping to hear back from area towns that they might consider a warming shelter for next winter.
“Most of these people worked their entire life. They raised families in this area, it’s their home,” Alusic-Bingham said. “And now, it’s like they are disposable.”
People needing help with rent assistance or housing can contact their town welfare office or shelterfromthestormnh.org, matsnh.org, grapevinenh.org, caphr.org, or rivercenternh.org.