City Braces for Hike in Homelessness

Ashley Oettinger, left, Journey and Joannie Polcaro serve free meals to 40-50 people at St George Episcopal Church Wednesday. Due to the closure of emergency shelters in Sanford and Alfred, Father Tim Higgins expects double the number of hungry people next week. “We’re going to get mobbed,” he said. “They’re going to be trickling into Sanford, expecting a place to live and food.”

Photo: Lee Burnett

By Lee Burnett

The homeless population in Sanford is expected to swell by dozens with the closure of emergency shelters in Sanford and Alfred.

Some 37 people faced eviction by Friday with last week’s announcement by York County Shelter Programs. Agency officials and allied organizations worked feverishly this past week, looking for alternative housing and stopgap funding. By mid-week, alternative housing had been found for these individuals.

At a Sanford City Council meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Becky Brink expressed alarm at the unfolding events, drawing particular attention to families with children.

“That’s a very big concern. Where are they going to go? A lot of them have children. That’s a scary situation, right now,” she said.

Because of its proximity, Sanford is expected to shoulder the burden of the closures. Alternative housing has been found for emergency shelter residents in Alfred, 16 people at the family shelter in Sanford will not have to move currently and agencies have been approached to support the family shelter, and 12 at Layman Way Recovery Center in Alfred will remain there. Layman Way is funded by the county with support staff provided by YCSP.

Many of those facing eviction have been in contact with Becky Jackson and her mother Journey, who serve meals and provide socks and other basic necessities to Sanford’s unhoused population.

“We’re getting texts at all hours of the night, people are terrified,” said Becky. She was at St George’s Episcopal Church Wednesday afternoon serving hot meals through her organization It Takes a Village 207. She expects many facing eviction will head to Sanford, and she fears many will regress without stable housing and rehab services at the shelter. “It’s going to be a travesty,” she said. She estimates Sanford’s unhoused population at 50 people at any one time and 100 over the course of a month. “They’re living in tents, couch surfing or living in cars,” she said. Many of them spend their days on their feet. “They’re exhausted.” Many of them are also “on edge,” dealing with recent deaths of two fellow unhoused residents, both in their 30s, she said.

“We lost two people, one through overdose,” she said.

One shelter resident who is wrestling with undesirable options is Joanne Goodreau, 62. When reached by telephone Wednesday, she said she is still unsure where she would go. She decided against asking friends to take her in. “They have families. I would feel uncomfortable [asking]. Some of us here are looking at tenting it. I don’t know if I could tent. I’m hoping I could stay in someone’s camper until I figure it out … I’m hoping something good will come.”

Many agencies have mobilized to try to soften the impending crisis, among them York County Community Action Corp., Sanford Housing Authority, and United Way of Southern Maine.

Five people have been placed in permanent housing, and four people have been identified as eligible for help by the city’s General Assistance Program, the city’s emergency relief program, according to City Manager Steve Buck.

York County Commissioners voted Wednesday to maintain the shelter-run food pantry, which serves 6,000 people per month. It will cost $25,000 to maintain operations through the end of the fiscal year and another $100,000 next year to take over operations and hire staff. Without their support, the pantry would be forced to close, noted county manager Greg Zinser. The county already owns the pantry building at the corner of Swett’s Bridge Road and Route 4 in Alfred.

The closures were precipitated in part due to chronic underfunding that has also plagued all emergency shelters in the state, according to York County Shelter. Board treasurer Kelli Deveau said the shelter receives $7 per night per bed from the state, while nightly costs are $102 per night. The agency’s books were so out of whack that interim director Barbara Crider was only on the job for four hours when she realized the agency couldn’t afford to pay her. She resigned on the spot and offered to work for free Buck told the council.

The Maine Legislature is considering an infusion of $6.5 million to the state’s 40 emergency shelters, which have been flat funded at $2.5 million since 2016. The funding would increase the per night bed rate from $7 to $19.

Mayor Brink said she is “amazed” the state has not done more. “It’s almost like they’re looking the other way and hoping it will resolve itself, and it can’t,” she said. “It takes your breath away.”

Gov. Janet Mills expressed support for those affected by closures, according to a letter signed by her and members of the York County’s legislative delegation, Buck said, adding “I don’t know what that support would look like. There’s no money in the pipeline.”

Buck said he and others have begun talking about reactivating the community-based response that developed two years ago when dozens of asylum seekers from African countries descended on Sanford almost overnight. Within three months, permanent housing had been found for them, although the population of asylum seekers has since swelled to around 200.

Longer term, Buck said he sees no viable way of reorganizing the finances at YCSP, “even if creditors were taken off their backs … There’s no cash.” He issued a challenge to all communities and leaders in the region to step up.

“I envision that leadership within York County will have to recreate the [shelter] program,” he said.