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Thursday, December 18, 2003
Solutions mean thinking small
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||||||
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Also on this page: Hidden Faces of Poverty | |||||||||||||
SOMERVILLE ã In this town with no stores, no gas stations and two paved roads, the red-brick Somerville School is a beacon. The only public building, it serves as the elementary school, the town hall and the auditorium, where children and adults gather for concerts, meetings, 4-H and book clubs, basketball games and potluck suppers. At a time when some Maine towns are losing jobs, people and opportunities, schools like Somerville elementary offer hope and a sense of community. "It is the one bright light that tells folks there's something going on in town tonight," Principal Jeffrey Aronson says. "It is a place where people can do something with their children. Do something together." When Aronson thinks of building a stronger Maine, he thinks of this Lincoln County town of 500, the school and ideas for the future, perhaps adult-education classes, more activities for schoolchildren - kids from families struggling to earn a living. More than half of his schoolchildren are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches because of the low income of their families. "With the state losing jobs, facing higher taxes, everyone talks about consolidating resources, closing schools," Aronson says. "But when you empty your towns' resources, you leave those towns as shells," he says. "When we talk about revitalizing the state, building a future for our kids, this is where it's going to happen. "If Maine's going to get stronger, it's got to happen town by town." From Somerville to Caribou, Calais to Kittery, there are many piecemeal plans for boosting the economy, for bettering the lives of Maine children and stemming a wave of drug addiction that is hitting rural towns particularly hard. Everyone agrees there is no single solution. Politicians, doctors, social workers and teachers say change must come in measures both big and small. "We've got challenges in northern, Down East and western Maine," Gov. John Baldacci says. "There needs to be more opportunity in those areas, more resources and strategies." Baldacci knows firsthand there are two Maines - the populous and more prosperous south and the counties north, east and west of Bangor, counties losing population and jobs. Baldacci grew up in Bangor and served Maine's 2nd District as a U.S. representative. The district covers the northern tier of the state, and is the largest east of the Mississippi River because of its sparse population. He agrees with Somerville principal Aronson that strengthening Maine's rural economy must happen locally. "We've got to work in the small towns with people locally to empower them to change their lives," Baldacci says. "We can't fix this in Augusta or Washington. We've got to stimulate the economy and leadership in our communities." While Baldacci argues it's important to save money by consolidating and centralizing services in towns, he also understands Aronson's view - that counties like Aroostook and Washington are special situations that need extra help. Baldacci says the state's newly created Pine Tree Zones are a step toward reducing the economic gap between southern and northern Maine. The zones will give counties with high unemployment and poverty levels the ability to reduce or eliminate taxes for new or expanding businesses. So far, Washington, Aroostook, Androscoggin and Penobscot have been chosen. The Legislature has supported Baldacci's plan. "By creating these tax-free zones, we're allowing new businesses to grow and hopefully we can reverse the tide somewhat," Baldacci says. While the nation's economy has seen a recent upswing, Baldacci and state analysts realize that persistent poverty and unemployment in Maine's rural towns demand a new way of thinking. "You've got more of a distance between houses and communities," Baldacci says. "You don't have a concentrated base of people, and the fragmentation makes it harder to pull efforts together." Maine's biggest and most northern county, Aroostook, spans 6,500 square miles. Piscataquis County in central Maine is two-thirds the size of Aroostook. Both Aroostook and Piscataquis suffer from higher poverty rates than the southern counties of Cumberland and York. Seventeen percent of the children living in Aroostook live in poverty. In Piscataquis it's 18.5 percent, compared with 10 percent in York and 9.5 percent in Cumberland. "Northern Maine will never be southern Maine, but we've got to find a way to strengthen all of our counties," Baldacci says. Can't go home again Families that have left northern counties like Aroostook for opportunity elsewhere often approach Baldacci, telling him they want to move home but can't. The state's largest and most northern county, Aroostook County lost 15 percent of its population between 1990 and 2000. Other counties, like Piscataquis, saw population drops of nearly 8 percent during the same time. Washington County's fell 4 percent. "When I run into the people who left Aroostook County, they tell me they want to go back," Baldacci says. "They want to be back with family. They don't want to have to move downstate or out of state." There are 11 people per square mile in Aroostook County, compared with 318 per square mile in Cumberland County. In Piscataquis County, there are even fewer people - 4 per square mile. Isolation in some rural counties - where there may be few neighbors, jobs or services - poses one of the biggest threats to a young person's future, says William O'Hare of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national organization that supports educating the public on, and providing assistance to, disadvantaged children. "In big cities you have kids who are socially isolated, but they're not physically isolated like kids in rural Maine," O'Hare says. "Kids in Washington, D.C., can get on a subway bus and go from their homes in the ghetto to another side of town. "In rural Maine, kids may be a long way from their neighbors, a long way from social services and jobs." Connecting these isolated counties, economic experts say, is vital to the state's future generations. "Urban ghettos are isolated by race and ethnicity," says Charles Colgan, professor of public policy at University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service. "Rural ghettos are isolated by distance and lack of economic diversity. But some of the disadvantages that separates rural areas can be overcome." Colgan believes the state has to provide better transportation systems, increased educational opportunities and stronger economic ties to Maine's cities. The governor's newly created Pine Tree Zones will help, but Colgan says the state should enhance computer and technology education for Maine's young people. "We've got some good community colleges in our isolated counties and we have to build on that," Colgan says. "There are technological opportunities but our youth have to be skilled and well-educated." Beyond education, the state should also consider ways to broaden the economic base as Maine's paper and manufacturing mills shut down. Colgan believes the state should look to new ventures such as large resorts or recreation centers, which could provide people with steady jobs and benefits. "Maine has some untapped opportunities in tourism and recreation," Colgan says. "We're a state of small-scale companies. What about a world-class resort in Maine?" What about the children? Along with the economic boost, children need to be seen, heard and counted, says Marcia Rogers, who directs the Head Start programs in Calais, a small city in Washington County. "We do studies on economic impacts but where are the studies on our children?" Rogers asks. Child advocates often say they have trouble gathering data from state agencies like the Department of Human Services regarding the welfare of children. "If we don't know the numbers of our children in need, how can we help them?" Rogers asks. The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram also had difficulty receiving statistics from DHS on how many children in the state receive welfare through a program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The reports the state agency provided for the "Castaway Children" series showed that the number of Maine children on welfare jumped 70 percent in 18 months. But Peter Walsh, acting chief of DHS, later said the numbers were erroneously elevated because "of a defect in the system." DHS was unable to provide the accurate figures, a discrepancy Baldacci's office called troublesome. The agency has been scrutinized recently because of other inaccurate numbers involving its federal and state spending. "If there's a flaw in the system, how do you know what's really going on with our kids?" asks Dan Reardon, who chairs the three-member Board of Overseers at Long Creek Youth Developmental Center. Reardon personally knows of 10 youths who died in the past five years of drug or alcohol overdoses. They all had been committed previously at the correctional center in South Portland. He has kept a list of their names on the back of an envelope. The youngest was 17. The oldest, 20. "The deaths of these kids, it's like a never-ending story," Reardon says. "Substance abuse is a huge issue among the kids, along with mental health issues. When you put two of them together, it often ties into poverty. "There's just so little resources for these kids," Reardon says. "They just don't have a lot of options, particularly in northern Maine." Maine's accidental drug overdoses increased nearly sevenfold from 1997 to 2002, soaring from 19 deaths to 126, according to the Medical Examiner's Office. The average age of the overdose victims was 40, but child advocates such as Reardon say they're attending too many funerals for the young. "There's not enough places for these kids to turn," Reardon says. Maine's Office of Substance Abuse Director Kim Johnson agrees that the state's youths need more places to detox from drugs and alcohol, more residential beds to seek long-term help. By the end of the year, the number of youth-residential beds will increase from 24 to 29, offering live-in programs that span a month to a year. "We need to do a lot of things to address the problem, education, prevention, and the other is treatment," Johnson says. "And we're working on that." Johnson points to the large increase at the state's four methadone clinics. The number of addicts receiving methadone has spiked from 300 to 1,600 in the past three years. There are an estimated 11,000 children and teenagers who have drug and alcohol addictions in Maine. Last year, 1,367 children under the age of 18 received treatment. In 2000, Maine led the country in drug treatment for OxyContin and other opiates, excluding heroin, at a rate of 63 per 100,000 people, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. "People look at our treatment numbers nationally and say they're high, but I see that as a positive. We're getting more people into treatment," Johnson says. Long-term scars There still are gaps in Maine's rural regions, where there are no drug-treatment centers, detox facilities or residential beds. Pediatric doctors like Dr. Gautam Popli witness the effects of those gaps in the faces of the children who come into his Calais office. Popli is concerned about the long-term scars left on children living in homes where poverty and addiction are constant threats. "We can mend broken bones and suture cuts, but what about the long-term emotional abuse?" he asks. "We won't know for years to come the toll it takes on a child." Popli came to Calais five years ago from New York. He is astonished by the child abuse and neglect he sees in his practice. Children come in with broken bones, concussions or anxiety disorders from witnessing violence in their homes. "I see more frequent abuse here than I did when I worked in the inner city in the Bronx," Popli says. "There is a lot of alcohol, opiate abuse in the community," he says. "It's a big factor in seeing a lot of troubled and unstable relationships. If you were to do a survey, I think you'd find the mental-health problems are very high." While Popli has been impressed with many families who survive on meager resources, he worries about parents overwhelmed with bills, unable to drive their children long distances for medical and dental care. "Transportation is a big problem in Washington County, especially in the winter," Popli says. "The geography of our county is so big that a lot of these kids aren't getting the care they need. They're isolated and, I think, sometimes forgotten." The cost of isolation Brian Altvater knows what can happen to a child living in isolation. He lives on Pleasant Point Reservation, a community of 640 American Indians on the eastern tip of Maine. There, among the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the jobless rate is 15 percent and the per capita income is $9,000. Without a chance of finding work, many of the reservation's youths leave or choose a life of addiction. Nearly 100 percent of the community is affected by drugs and alcohol, Alvater says. "There's not one person that's unaffected by addiction in our community," says Alvater, who works for the reservation's housing authority. "The abuse affects everyone of our families our kids." For years on the reservation there was no place for the youth to gather, to call their own. The community's newly opened Sipayik Boys and Girls center is one small measure of hope. The center opened in January and serves more than 100 of the community's children. The club offers dances, traditional drumming and singing. The children make baskets out of sweet ash and learn how to do beadwork. The center is open after school and all day on Saturdays. "Our goal is to give these kids a safe place to teach them about responsibility and their traditions," says Altvater, who is the director of the club. "It gives these kids something to look forward to. In the long run, I think it will help some save some of these kids from a life of addiction." Like Altvater, Aronson, the Somerville principal, looks to offer more at his school. Rather than offer adult-education classes in nearby cities, Aronson would prefer to offer them in his school, the only public building in this town of 500. Typically, adult-education classes are offered miles away at community colleges in Fairfield or Augusta, a city 17 miles away. In the winter, it can be difficult to drive that far, Aronson says. There are only two paved roads in town and driving long distances can be treacherous. "If we offered continuing-education classes in our school, more people could come to them," Aronson says. Aronson understands that it is more cost-effective to hold adult-education classes in cities like Augusta. But he believes that it sends the wrong message to small towns. "Why can't I offer a family a chance to learn computer technology in their own town?" Aronson asks. "We offer potluck dinners, book discussions. Why can't we offer families a way to improve their futures?" Staff Writer Barbara Walsh can be contacted at 791-6355 or at: bwalsh@pressherald.com
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