MANCHESTER, NH – Two homeless camps on the property of the Hillsborough County Courthouse have been growing in size over the last year. The first signs of the camp appeared when a handful of people slept in the open air on the corner of Merrimack and Chestnut streets. Now, after COVID-19 has wreaked havoc with the economy, the camp is up to about 25 tents with a multitude of people coming and going.
Bicycles are in evidence everywhere in the camp, some chained to trees, some without wheels, others with people riding them. The tents are of various size and shape – some with tarps covering them, some without. Others have holes in them. The tents don’t appear to have been moved since the Halloween snow on a Friday nearly two weeks ago.
Nor has heavy rain caused anyone to move to a different place. Patches of fresh grass have now become mud trails where people walk and ride back and forth. On a recent visit to the site, some people were seen sitting and smoking, others were busy snacking. Still others were daysleeping in their tents. One commonality appeared among everyone there: each homeless person was reticent around strangers, and unwilling to offer comments to the media.
Misery was hung so palpably thick in the air that it could almost have been grabbed by hand. A sense of hopelessness pervaded the camp. Most folks have nowhere else to go.
Trash of various kinds littered the ground in patches. Clothes hung from tree branches. Masks are completely absent. Most people do not have a motor vehicle, much less a place to park one. They either have to travel on foot or by bicycle
Directly across the street, the Residence Inn by Marriott looks out onto a busy Granite Street where cars come and go throughout the day. The building is a relatively new one, constructed by AAM 15 of Burlington, Mass. It has 123 rooms.
Prices for a one-night stay at the hotel start around $107 dollars. A stay lasting four to five days roughly costs $428 and $535 dollars. While this nightly rate is cheaper than some other Residence Inns in the state – particularly one in Portsmouth – it is well above what other even well-to-do tenants are paying for their apartments.
According to rentjungle.com, the median price for a single bedroom apartment in Manchester is $1,374. In April of 2020, the median rent for a single bedroom was reported $807 for an increase of $567.
A census survey revealed that rent in Manchester averaged around $1,262 per month in 2019.
Although the Marriott is notable because it is so close to the homeless camp, it is not the newest center-city hotel. Tru by Hilton just opened on Spring Street with 88 rooms, in addition to the Hilton Garden Inn, with 127 rooms, and the Doubletree by Hilton, with 248 rooms, which makes four hotels within a two-mile radius for a total of 586 rooms.
Meanwhile, most of the CARES Act money addressing homelessness can’t be used to increase the number of existing beds for the homeless – it can only be used to modify shelters and procedures to allow for “decompression” – which means reducing the number of beds per the governor’s social distancing guidance. Any money for building or renovation projects must be used by Dec. 31.
Renters, it is generally understood, should spend no more than a third of their monthly income on rent. A person meeting this guideline makes roughly $45,000 a year. The reality for renters, however, is that this proves to be an unrealistic goal to meet. Failure to pay is the most common reason for a property owner to file for an eviction in court.
For the majority of homeless people living in tents in Manchester, a one-night stay at the Residence Inn is an impossible dream – much less having a stable enough income to afford an apartment in town, in addition to paying for their own utilities, food, and other expenses. Poor people in Manchester have simply been priced out – even while the city center slowly, inexorably, takes on a more urban look.
And this winter, in the midst of a global pandemic, there are fewer beds than ever for those in need.
Winter Trabex is a freelance writer who lives in Manchester.
