Tedford Housing, which operates the Midcoast’s only emergency shelter, is hoping a donation by Brunswick for its new facility will inspire other area communities to contribute.
A rendering of Tedford Housing’s new shelter planned for Thomas Point Road in Brunswick. Courtesy of Tedford Housing
Tedford asked the Brunswick Town Council to contribute $200,000 toward the project, which will increase the shelter’s capacity by 60%. The new, 17,568-square-foot facility on Thomas Point Road will have 24 adult beds and four-bedroom units for 10 families. The organization has raised $5.3 million so far for the $8.3 million project.
“Tedford’s new home will make it easier for more of our most vulnerable neighbors to overcome the obstacles they face to being stably housed,” Andrew Lardie, Tedford’s executive director, wrote in a letter to the council. “Tedford’s success at helping people get back on their feet reduces the strain on scarce town resources and improves the overall quality of life for all residents.
“A $200,000 contribution to Tedford’s project would signal the council’s understanding that when we lift from the bottom, everybody rises.”
Councilor Abby King proposed the council grant the request at its meeting Monday night.
Lardie said this year, the shelter accommodated 13% of housing requests, turning away 463 adults and 139 families due to a lack of space.
“We have to do more,” he wrote.
Lardie said Harpswell, Woolwich, Phippsburg and Arrowsic have appropriated funds for Tedford in their budgets, and a donation by Brunswick could inspire nearby communities like Bath, Topsham and Freeport.
“Brunswick’s gift would establish an invaluable precedent as we make similar appeals to nearby larger towns … for contributions in proportion to our level of service in each,” he wrote.
Lardie said Brunswick households account for a greater share of clients than any other community, representing 30% of those in its shelter, 35% of case management and homeless prevention, and 50% of households receiving heating assistance.
“Decades of research show that housing approaches like Tedford’s yield significant public cost savings compared with purely reactive responses to homelessness,” he wrote. “Keeping people in their homes amid hard times, and getting unhoused people into stable shelter, interrupts what is often a cascade of subsequent crises that would otherwise arrive at the doorstep of overstretched first responders and emergency rooms.”
Cumberland County has donated $1.75 million for the new shelter, while the Mid Coast-Parkview Health/LincolnHealth Community Health Improvement Committee contributed $500,000.
“The latter gift reflects the medical community’s understanding that there is no public health project in our region that is more urgent than this one, and there is no time to waste in getting the job done,” Lardie wrote.
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