INFO BOX:

Places to get help:

Ingraham Residential Programs – 774-HELP

-a crisis hotline that puts those in need in touch with organizations that provide help

Maine Emergency Shelter – www.mainehousing.org

-provides a list of emergency shelters throughout Maine

Westbrook Housing Authority – 854-9779

-implements the state-sponsored general assistance program to help those in need with rent, utilities, food and clothing costs

Westbrook Food Pantry – 22 Walker Street, Westbrook

-provides groceries to families in need

River of Life-Salvation Army (Westbrook) – 856-7729

-provides groceries and clothing to families in need

Portland Family Shelter (Portland) – 772-8339

-provides shelter to families

Oxford Street Shelter (Portland) – 761-2072

-provides shelter to individuals

Jennifer Libby is homeless, and doesn’t know where to turn to get her and her two young children a temporary place to stay in Westbrook.

Libby, 25, left her subsidized, Section 8 apartment in Westbrook three months ago to start fresh in Presque Isle, but things didn’t work out there, and now she’s returned and has no place to live. She and her children are bouncing from place to place, relying on friends and family to keep a roof over their heads until she can scrape some money together and find an apartment. Libby doesn’t want to leave Westbrook, but the city’s services for the homeless aren’t leaving her much choice.

Libby and her children are one of about a dozen families homeless in Westbrook at any one time. The city doesn’t have a shelter, and no longer puts families up in hotels until they can get back on their feet – an extremely expensive, temporary solution, according to the city administration. Instead, the services the city offers are geared toward providing extra help for food and utilities for families who can afford their rent, but not much more. Temporary shelter isn’t available.

For now, Libby and her two children are relegated to staying a night here and a night there. Her situation was much better when she had Section 8 housing, but she made the mistake of failing to give 30 days notice before leaving, and she was told she couldn’t qualify for it again.

Libby doesn’t deny that she’s made mistakes and doesn’t pretend to be blameless for her situation. Up until a year ago, Libby was a heroin addict. She said she’s been clean since then and is trying to make a fresh start in life for her and her two children. She said she still requires methadone to keep her recovery going and it’s difficult for her to work. It’s also difficult for her to find friends to stay with because many of her friends are still addicts.

She doesn’t feel bad for herself so much as her children, however. Her 2-year-old daughter’s father doesn’t help them because he’s a crack cocaine addict and doesn’t have a home of his own, she said.

The father of her 5-year-old son died two years ago from a drug overdose, and Libby said her son is just now starting to adjust to his life. He’s had learning disabilities but is doing better in school now, so she doesn’t want to transplant him to Portland. Her life is hard right now, but she wants to improve it and said her kids give her the strength to push on and to swallow her pride and ask for help, which she needs.

No place to go

Libby’s not alone. According to Westbrook Police Chief Paul McCarthy, a number of homeless people panhandle near the highway from time to time, and several campsites around town are used by some homeless people throughout the year. Those are the noticeable homeless, but there are others as well, he said, sleeping in their cars and going to Portland when it gets cold.

RenA?© Daniel, Westbrook Housing Authority’s representative for general assistance, said besides an unknown number of individuals who are homeless in Westbrook, there are also a dozen or so families, many like the Libbys – single parents struggling with children.

For some of these families, their homeless status is temporary, but the city’s general assistance program isn’t tailored to helping people for short periods, according to Daniel. Most of his clients – about 800 individuals and families in Westbrook – are working-class families that come to him for a little extra money for utilities, food and clothes, he said.

General assistance money, half of which are reimbursed to the city by the state, were created to provide the last possible safety net before becoming homeless, said Daniel, but the program is not designed as an immediate solution. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to apply for it, and on average it takes weeks to receive aid, he said.

“There’s no quick fix in general assistance,” said Daniel. “(And) the days of cities and towns putting people up in hotels is over,” a fairly common practice in years past.

“It’s a very expensive way of dealing with a short-term emergency,” said City Administrator Jerre Bryant, who added that eliminating it was not part of Mayor Bruce Chuluda’s effort to trim the city’s budget after taking office in 2004. He said the city decided to cut it from the budget because it made fiscal sense.

Libby said general assistance couldn’t get her into an apartment or put her up in a hotel with her two kids, Alexis Ouellette, 2, and Trevor Libby, 5. What the program could do was help her with rent, utilities and food if she could find an apartment – a difficult task for her now with no job and only about $600 per month in aid coming in from the state. Her other option is to go to Portland, but she doesn’t want to, because Westbrook is her home and her son is in school here.

“Westbrook is a great town, but they just need some more help for us,” she said.

Beyond general assistance, the aid available in Westbrook comes in the form of food or clothing, not shelter. The Westbrook Food Pantry, run by Jeannie Rielly, routinely serves upwards of 200 families each month. The Salvation Army also provides help, along with the St. Anthony’s Parish through the St. Vincent de Paul clothing and household item pantry.

“People don’t understand how many people are in need,” said Daniel.

No affordable housing

One of Libby’s friends, Fredette Brown, is in a similar situation as Libby – homeless with two kids – after having to leave her mother’s home for personal reasons a little more than two weeks ago. She said she has been seeking help from Portland, hoping to get into the Portland Family Shelter. Her two daughters, ages 7 and 9, are in Westbrook schools, but she doesn’t have any option but to move them.

In the meantime, she and her kids have bounced from friends to hotels. “As of today, I don’t have a place to stay,” Brown said last Tuesday.

Brown said she even went to the shelter on Preble Street in Portland, which she said is no place to take children. She said the workers there looked at her like she was crazy bringing them there, and referred her to the Portland Family Shelter.

“When you’re homeless with kids, you want them to be as comfortable as they can be,” said Brown.

Beyond Portland, the places to get help in Maine are centered in the larger towns of Bangor and Lewiston. No other towns in the Greater Portland area besides Portland have family shelters.

Robert Duranleau, director of social services for Portland, said about one-third of the homeless people Portland assists is from surrounding communities. They go there because their own communities don’t have facilities for them. He said he would like to see Westbrook and other communities maintain low rents, so that housing would be affordable for families that don’t make a lot of money. He doesn’t think Westbrook has any more homeless than the other surrounding communities.

“A shelter would help because it would allow immediate assistance to families,” said Daniel. “To have a roof over their head is what they need.”

Daniel said the shelter wouldn’t have to be limited to Westbrook. The city could cooperate with neighboring communities to form one. According to Bryant, the city hasn’t looked at creating a shelter in recent years. He said if it did, it would rely heavily on Daniel’s insights into the homeless situation in Westbrook.

“But if we’re not meeting a need in Westbrook, we need to look at ways to do it,” said Bryant.