Members of the Midcoast community gathered Tuesday night at The First Parish Church in Brunswick to remember those who died while experiencing homelessness in 2021.
The memorial, part of a nationwide event organized locally by Tedford Housing, is held annually on the longest night of the year. In Brunswick, the names of 10 people who died in the Midcoast region were read in front of a group of about 25 people holding candles.
The 10 include James Brawn, Jeff Fortin, Jennifer Robinson, Jai Jackson, Cheryl Glass, Terry Rubinstein, Amanda Barter, John Mederois, Alexia Wilson and Jeneatha Morse.
“The enormity of grief feels to me like a particularly apt description of the past few years,” said John Allen, the senior pastor of The First Parish Church. “Now we have this opportunity to be together, to remember what we’ve lost. Who we’ve lost. To name and lift up the memory of those whose lives have been an important part of our own and to lament the brokenness of our world that still overlooks and abandons so many.”
Tedford Housing is a Brunswick-based nonprofit that aids the homeless in the Midcoast. The organization operates one emergency shelter for adults and one for families.
According to Executive Director Rota Knott, the memorial has been happening for over 30 years nationwide, and Tedford has participated for most of that time. A year never goes by where there are no names to read, Knott said.
“We want people to recognize the challenges faced by those who have experienced homelessness in our community,” Knott said. “Holding the vigil on the longest night of the year, which is often during one of the coldest periods of the year, helps to share with the community what it may be like to experience homelessness – to be on the street, in the dark, on the longest night of the year, in the cold.”
In September, Tedford received preliminary approval by the town to build a 17,568-square-foot facility near Cook’s Corner that would increase the adult emergency housing capacity from 16 to 24 beds and have space to accommodate up to 10 families, for a total of 64 beds.
A final vote on the facility by Brunswick’s planning board is scheduled for Jan. 11, 2022.
The cold winter climate is one of the greatest threats to those experiencing homelessness in Maine. A specific area designated for cold weather is not included in the plans for the building, Knott said, one reason being a town cap on the amount of shelter beds and another because cold-weather resources typically pop up seasonally, usually coming from the faith-based community.
“We have a moderate increase in capacity to serve more people so hopefully we will be able to get more people off the street and into shelter,” Knott said.
In the 2021 fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30, Tedford Housing turned away 284 adults and 74 families due to capacity. In total, the organization served 38 individuals in the adult shelter and 15 families, made up of 48 family members, in the family shelter.
The average length of stay at the adult shelter was 74 days and the average length of stay at the family shelter was 124 days.
Dan Brennan, the director of MaineHousing, said he believes the root cause of homelessness in Maine primarily stems from three factors — mental health, substance abuse and a lack of affordable housing. MaineHousing is an independent organization created in 1969 by the Maine State Legislature to address housing issues in Maine.
“The current system that we have in place around homelessness really hasn’t served us very well despite the well intentioned organizations, Tedford among them, that have been really at the frontline of homelessness for decades,” said Brennan. “We need a new system, and it needs be a more cohesive system, it needs to involve communities, it needs to involve regions and those that are outside of the homeless services community.”
Brennan said that implementing more “supported apartments,” which are run in collaboration with organizations who understand and can cater to the challenges that the homeless population face, is an important step to take.
MaineHousing is also working to map out a more regional approach to help those experiencing homelessness because, Brennan said, too often the those experiencing homelessness become concentrated Portland, Bangor or Lewiston
“The region of Aroostook County is very different than the region of the Midcoast and that’s very different than the region of Western Maine,” said Brennan.
On one night in January 2020, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that Maine had an estimated 2,097 experiencing homelessness.
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