MANCHESTER, NH — At the age of 44 with a long career of bartending behind her, Kelly McAndrew probably didn’t expect to be sleeping under a bridge in a tent in the middle of a global pandemic. Yet, that is the situation in which she finds herself at present. She was evicted from her place of residence in June 2019; she has been homeless since then. Before that, she has been homeless on and off for the last 10 years. The latest episode, for her, has been the most difficult one she has experienced.
Previous to sleeping in a tent beneath the Amoskeag Bridge near Rimmon Heights and Mast Road on the West Side of Manchester, she had been staying at the New Horizons shelter. She left for a few days, as many people do. When she came back, she was first told admittance to the shelter would take place only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then she was told the shelter wasn’t accepting anyone at all. No one could get inside the building. Since her mailing address was the shelter itself, she has had difficulty accessing her mail. She has not yet put in her information for a stimulus payment from the IRS both because she does not have access to a computer and because she does not have a mailbox where she can receive mail.
FIT/New Horizons Chief Strategy Officer Cathy Kuhn and Chief Operating Officer Stephanie Savard have both promised to work on this particular issue. They are aware that some homeless people have obstacles that may prevent them from accessing stimulus payments.
Since losing her photo ID, McAndrew has no way to open a bank account. Without a bank account, she has no way to receive payments from the government. She is not on SSI, SSDI, or TANF.
When she did come back to the shelter asking for a bed, McAndrew found all of her property had been given away or thrown out. The shelter had made a comprehensive effort to sanitize the entire facility. She claims to have been denied access to her regular caseworker, Griffin. When she asked about the mail, she was told she would have to speak with her caseworker. The last communication she had with him was a conversation in which he said he had no idea what she was supposed to do.
Living in a tent while almost every business is shut down has proved a challenge. Many non-profit services upon which Manchester’s homeless population relied have been closed down. Many food pantries are no longer open. Many places where homeless people could have lunch and grab some food to go has limited or stopped the services they provide. This has led to a series of daily challenges, the biggest of which is food.
People have been, at times, dropping food off now and then. Someone from the Farnum Center took McAndrew and another woman to Market Basket, buying for them anything they might need. Others donate whatever food they may have on hand. Hot meals have been few and far between – an especially difficult problem to deal with during cold days and colder nights.
One of the few remaining resources is the 1269 Cafe, a religious-based outreach housed at the former police station on Chestnut Street. Mary Chevalier, who runs the program with her husband, Craig, said they have extended their hours of operation since the health crisis started.
“We’re open till 4:30 p.m. six days a week, and typically we stop that at the end of March, but not this year,” Chevalier said. Lunch is still being served until food runs out, and the 1269 food pantry procedure has been modified.
“We pick the order rather than letting guests shop themselves but we have an order form so they can have choices,” Chevalier said. “We realize that right now that we’re about the only place you can go to the bathroom, take a shower, and sit down for a while. Though we have limited crowd sizes allowed in at one time, people can still get in.”
The New Horizons outreach team has been going out to five different encampments throughout the city every weekday in the afternoon to deliver meals and provide what services they can. These include case management, health care, and behavioral health services. They are currently partnering with the Salvation Army to provide such food, though Kuhn admitted it’s still a work in progress.
“It’s about making sure the people who are outside have everything they need to keep themselves safe,” Kuhn said.
The safety of the outreach team members is also being taken into consideration. All staff who visit the city’s encampments are equipped with masks, gloves, and an optional face shield if they want one. They have been trained on how to maintain social distancing while still providing support.
The people living at McAndrew’s encampment, which she calls Camp Live Free, have no space heater, no cooler to store food, and nothing to prepare any food they may have.
The city fire department is visiting the site daily. McAndrews says they have been given the okay to use charcoal for cooking, but not as a heat source. However, as they have none and have no way of acquiring any, it’s a moot point.
McAndrew must find her own way to stay warm.
“We told them that there is nothing we can do about charcoal, no different than anyone wanting to use a barbecue grill,” said Manchester Fire Chief Dan Goonan about those encamped along the river. He also said he fire marshal has advised them not to burn wood.
“We would prefer them to use the small cooking stove,” Goonan said. “At this point we will be in the encampments daily working with outreach trying to make them as safe as possible.”
While many such items are expensive, she would like to see solar-powered devices provided for communal use. Phones and other electric devices are constantly running out of a charge. McAndrew must walk to Dunkin Donuts, a long walk for her, just to recharge her phone. Without her phone, she has no way of asking for help or calling for an ambulance if one is ever needed. No one at the camp knows how long they will be there.
Fortunately, she does have food stamps and Medicaid. She is looking forward to May 5, when the next payment will come through. From where she is, however, there are no grocery stores close to her. The nearest one is Hannaford, some ways down Mast Road just across the Goffstown border. As of this writing, no service provides delivery of food with food stamps. Wal-Mart currently offers pickup of orders for 30 or more dollars. However, the location on Gold Street is so far away from McAndrew that it might as well be in another state.
The problem is not limited to McAndrew’s encampment. Other tents have been popping up here and there, as Manchester’s homeless population increasingly prefers to sleep rough rather than risk their personal health, safety, and personal property at the shelter. Others who have left the shelter report feeling they were treated badly there, and some say they perceive the shelter is looking for any excuse to put someone on the street.
FIT/New Horizons acknowledges the census is down for this time of year, and that people are leaving the shelter due to safety concerns. But they have also recently opened St. Casimir’s as a second shelter site to allow for more social distancing, and a third site, at the former Angie’s Place, was set to open once hiring was completed.
McAndrews said Mayor Joyce Craig did visit the camp to talk to people there and gain an understanding of why they are living outside. Shortly thereafter, two portable toilets and a washing basin were installed at the camp.
According to the mayor’s office, the board of aldermen is following interim guidance from the Centers for Disease Control on COVID-19 and homeless encampments, which advises they should not be relocated or broken up to avoid the risk of spreading the coronavirus somewhere else.
Governor Sununu also recently signed off on a Justice Assistance Grant for the Manchester Police Department to provide 24/7 patrols of the areas to help keep the encampments and surrounding neighborhoods safe. All of this comes at no cost to the city.
McAndrews said thus far, her interactions with law enforcement have been positive. She, along with the other people sleeping at the encampment, took it upon themselves to fill 20 black bags worth of trash. An officer came by with a sanitation truck to take away the trash bags. All the officers who have come to the site have shown their appreciation for this.
Goonan said the situation is temporary and that eventually, the encampment will have to go. The goal is for adjustments being made now by New Horizons will bring people back to a safer environment at the shelter, once the health crisis subsides. “Following CDC recommendations and best practices, it makes sense to let people stay and provide supports in the short term,” Goonan said. “The CDC will have more guidance as we get on the other side of this and those encampments will no longer be supported, and will be removed.”
McAndrew says she is sleeping better in a tent than she ever did at the shelter.
“I slept horribly at the shelter,” she said. “Now that I’m in a tent, I’m sleeping too much. I sleep like a baby. I enjoy the sounds of the river and the birds nearby.”
She keeps a solar-powered spotlight and a lock on her tent’s zipper to keep unwanted people out. Thus far, it’s been a struggle to regulate who comes and who goes. Sometimes, people stop by who are unwelcome. Fortunately, no one has yet disturbed her sleep. In fact, she has grown so close with her follow tent-sleepers that she calls them “bunkies” and “family.”
McAndrews says the homeless population at Camp Live Free needs more tents (capable of holding 4 to 6 people), solar-powered coolers for food storage, solar electronic chargers, charcoal for food preparation, food itself, and clothing. Many folks, like McAndrew, lost what little they had; now they have nothing left to their name except what they can carry.
She said donations of items can be made under the Amoskeag Bridge near the Armory and reservoir by Rimmon Heights. A plastic orange cone has been placed to mark off their site.
