MANCHESTER, NH – Tonight the city will prepare a space for the chronically homeless, those who for a number of reasons either can’t or won’t go into the state’s largest low-barrier shelter, operated by Families in Transition.
As city leaders heed the call for human compassion, knowing that many of these people dwell in a deep state of addiction to drugs and alcohol and aren’t ready to sober up, there is conflict. Many of them have co-occurring mental illnesses, for which addiction is a salve to dull their senses. It leads to spent hypodermic needles and empty cans and bottles. Lost souls loiter in doorways, roam side streets, or pace aimlessly.
Compassion fatigue is settling in.
No one knows if any of those living outside will accept the offer of a warm bed at the Cashin Senior Center on the West Side. There are barriers, including a stipulation that they can’t bring along their stuff – of which there is plenty. Backpacks, bicycles, blankets, tents and tarps.
Capacity at the FIT shelter is listed at 138 beds and most nights, they are also full.
Even when there are one or two beds open, they are usually for men. In the past week it was reported by Mayor Joyce Craig that two women seeking shelter there were turned away because the two open beds were designated for men.
Since November the city’s visibly homeless population has created an encampment surrounding the shelter on sidewalks that have been described as public property. During the Jan. 3 Board of Aldermen meeting, At-Large Alderman Joe Kelly Levasseur pushed back on that assumption, requesting that the city and its legal department research who actually owns the sidewalks, and what ordinances might be possible to keep order in the city without violating civil rights and activating the ACLU.
In the meantime, arguments over the legal boundaries of where people can “live” are dwarfed by the greater issue of how an encampment of 50 tents and a growing population of homeless people was allowed to happen in the center of the city.
Or how to solve it.
As Manchester enters a state of emergency around the issue of homelessness, there are other cities doing the same. City leaders in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tacoma, Washington, South Burlington, VT., Portland, Maine, are doing everything in real time that Manchester is doing. The headlines in those cities are no different than ours – homeless people found dead due to the elements, mayors calling for police to move those “who are a danger to themselves and others;” ordering of emergency temporary shelter beds in established shelters, churches, vacant city buildings and motels.
At-Large Alderman Pat Long says it doesn’t matter to him that this problem is happening everywhere. “What matters to me is that it’s happening here, in Manchester. Enough is enough.” He says he is frustrated that efforts are not more coordinated. He would like to audit where the federal dollars allocated through the city’s CIP program have been spent, and reclaim what hasn’t.
“Money isn’t the issue. We need action,” Long said.
Homelessness far and wide
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, unsheltered homelessness was on the rise during the period leading up to the pandemic. Fewer and fewer people were staying in shelters. The downward trend in shelter usage continued into 2021.
From their 2022 Report:
An easy assumption would be that systems are failing—that they’re providing fewer people with shelter, leaving more and more people to sleep outside. However, the reality is much more complicated.
Overall, homeless services systems have actually increased their capacity to serve people. As illustrated in the below visualization (Permanent vs Temporary Bed Inventory Trends, 2007-2021), systems have been steadily growing their available bed numbers. However, they have been increasingly focusing their resources on permanent housing rather than temporary shelter. Thus, more and more people may be benefitting from housing and services, but an increasing share is living in permanent housing as opposed to languishing in temporary shelters. Further, growth in overall bed numbers is likely failing to keep pace with the number of new people entering homelessness, and specifically unsheltered homelessness.
This overall trend predated the pandemic. However, HUD’s AHAR Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates of the Sheltered Homelessness (February 2022) highlights some COVID-19-related factors that likely contributed to decreases the size of the sheltered population between 2020 and 2021. These include:
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reduced shelter capacity due to social distancing requirements, and
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reduced inflow into shelters tied to eviction moratoria and stepped-up investments in homelessness prevention and diversion.
On Jan. 3 Mayor Craig issued a letter to Gov. Chris Sununu, signed by mayors from across the state, requesting the state take immediate action to help all municipalities address the current crisis, including lack of shelter beds and affordable housing statewide. Sununu pushed back at the letter, calling it “misleading” and saying Manchester has resources it could be using.
State Initiatives
In November of 2020 Sununu assembled the NH Council on Housing Stability, charged with creating a statewide strategic plan to address the state’s growing challenges of affordable housing and the byproduct of homelessness.
In 2022 the council was scheduled to convene four times. According to DHHS spokesman Jake Leon, the November meeting was canceled due to lack of a quorum. According to the September minutes, there was a presentation on winter sheltering but there are no details or action items listed. The next scheduled meeting is Jan. 24.
In July Sununu announced a $100 million InvestNH plan to address the state’s housing shortage which allocated $60 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars to developers. Of that, $10 million was to go to the New Hampshire Housing Authority, and another $10 million was earmarked for non-profit and small-scale for-profit developers. The remaining $40 million was dedicated to municipalities to help streamline the process to get the projects built. There is also money municipalities can use to demolish old structures and for updating zoning ordinances to meet current needs.
On Dec. 2 the Governor and Executive Council approved an additional $50 million for the InvestNH plan to address “gap funding” for 30 of the projects which are held to affordability restrictions and construction completion within 18 months. A list of the projects can be found here, including four in Manchester.
Economic Fallout From Homelessness
A daycare across the street from the makeshift encampment announced Tuesday it’s closing its doors permanently in June after 18 years and selling the building, a direct casualty of the chaos outside the building. Several other neighboring businesses spoke publicly at this week’s aldermanic meeting to say they are out of time and patience waiting for the city to respond. Saigon Market came to ask the city for action as they are losing customers. Others said they are hanging by a financial thread, and are left to clean up the human excrement left outside their buildings every day.
Norri Oberlander of North End Properties has started a private effort to fund a solution with fellow property owners. She has raised more than $40,000. She is looking for the city to convene a task force to assist them with a plan to create a more appropriate place for the homeless to receive services and regain their humanity.
There are no public bathrooms available. The city tried a porta-potty pilot program in Veterans Park back in 2019, but it ended in May of 2021 after Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg reported that the potties had become a haven for illegal substance use and assaults.
After Tuesday’s meeting the city announced it is re-evaluating the feasibility of providing bathrooms again.
FIT reserves bathroom and meal privileges for the 138 people occupying beds inside. The former New Horizons Soup Kitchen which provided two daily meals to anyone in need, was “sunsetted” from FIT’s renewed branding campaign in January of 2021. There are a few church outreaches that provide meals.
The only bathroom frequented by the homeless is at 1269 Cafe, during operating hours. When the warming station opens at 8 p.m. bathroom time is managed by a sign-up sheet and a time limit. The warming station there provides a place to sit, a meal, hot coffee and refuge overnight. They have a capacity of about 50 or so, but since opening their doors Dec. 1, the city reports that they usually only reach about half capacity.
With the opening of the city’s Emergency Operations Center at 1 p.m. Friday department heads will convene regularly to strategize over short- and long-term plans to keep people safe and move them into more permanent housing. The Cashin Center is not a permanent solution, and those who use it daily have reservations about turning it into a regular nightly shelter, including the Cashin Center director.
This is not a new problem
In April of 2021 the city released its 30-page Affordable Housing TaskForce Report based on several meetings of a task force formulated in April of 2019. Two of the recommendations included use of vacant city buildings and an increase in public-private partnerships – to include several non-profit organizations that receive state and federal funding specifically for addressing homelessness.
In November of 2019, a large encampment of people took over the state-owned Hillsborough County Superior Courthouse lawn. They were dispersed by NH State Police without any provisions for alternative care. About 15 of those were transported to respite beds in Derry. Within a month nearly all of those people were back on the streets. Those few who were left to figure out a plan were told the state-funded respite was ending on Dec. 31 and they had to go.
A few months later, in March of 2020, COVID 19 brought any momentum for solutions in the works to a standstill. Shelter capacities were drastically reduced around the state and many of those living unsheltered in Manchester created another encampment under the Amoskeag bridge off of River Road. Federal money was used to keep those people in one place, providing toilets, sinks and daily food drops. The city’s fire department and outreach team made daily visits to the encampment to make sure everyone was safe. When the emergency funding ended the toilets were removed and services ended, even though tents remained. A propane tank fire in Feb. of 2021 forced everyone to leave the area. A fence was erected by the city to keep people from returning to the campsite.
Over the next three years the city has grappled with lack of shelter capacity, lack of transitional and permanent affordable housing options, and a proliferation of encampments. Various ordinances were crafted this year to prevent people from sleeping in parks or having shopping carts and umbrellas in those public spaces, an attempt to keep people from camping on city property.
Over the summer of 2022 more than 70 people were moved from parks and into treatment for addiction through a partnership with GateHouse, a recovery program based in Nashua, with a reported high rate of success and little recidivism, according to Amanda Robichaud, who was a central part of that outreach effort. She spoke during Tueday’s meeting, expressing her interest in continuing to work with the city.
In September the city’s Director of Homeless Initiatives, Schonna Green, resigned, citing personal reasons. Although strides were made on her watch toward building partnerships and long-term solutions, the cold weather was closing in.
In November of this year the city hired a new director for Homeless Initiatives, Adrienne Beloin. And she has hit the ground running to pick up where Green left off while coordinating efforts among non-profit partners. They also this week announced the hiring with grant funding of Andrew Warner as the city’s first Director of Overdose Prevention.
It is progress but it is too little too late for this moment.
Tonight the city will be prepared with a safe space and warm beds for those who are living on the sidewalk. Doors open at 7 p.m. and anyone who shows up will have to leave by 6 a.m. A police officer will be on duty overnight, and two fire personnel are scheduled to man the center. Aramark was hired for cleaning and sanitization every morning, including electrostatic sprayers and disinfecting surfaces.
It is about two miles away from the encampment. Those who wish to sleep there will have a 24-minute walk to the West Side, across one of two footbridges that span the Merrimack River. Manchester Fire Chief Ryan Cashin says transportation will be available for anyone who wants a ride from 1269 Cafe to the senior center, via Lyft. It’s a temporary fix. In the meantime, the city will keep looking for a better alternative. They are considering all vacant buildings in the city and are open to public suggestions.
