BATH — A group of Bath citizens has a number of ideas it believes would help the local homeless population, including making a change to the city’s zoning ordinance.

The group, and the initiatives they’re working on, grew out of a series of conversations on homelessness in Bath hosted by the Neighborhood church. On Tuesday, the group decided to push for three approaches to addressing the problem: advocating for zoning changes to allow accessory dwelling units, developing a home sharing program and creating a homelessness activists list.

Accessory dwelling units are living spaces that stand separate from the main home, such as a mother-in-law apartment or the more trendy tiny houses. Currently, those structures are illegal in Bath in properties zoned for single-family residences, said Freedman. Such structures would provide more housing options for people in Bath who perhaps can’t afford a home or an apartment. Freedman said that city staff has been receptive to discussing the idea further.

The home sharing program seeks to make use of Bath’s historic homes, many of which are large and underutilized. As member Karen Freedman explained, many of Bath’s larger homes are occupied by elderly people who aren’t using all of the space. The group’s idea is for an initiative that would team up elderly residents with extra rooms with homeless people who could help around the house and assist them with aging at home.

“It was kind of two-way thing that would be helpful to elderly people living at home,” explained Sally Hennessey, another member of the group. “A younger couple or person could live in an extra room and help with shoveling snow or carrying groceries.”

The final idea is simply organizing those who have taken part in the conversation to create a homelessness advocacy list. Those on that list could be called on to advocate for homeless people before the city council and with other groups, especially in forums where homeless voices aren’t present.

Those three approaches are in addition to the community investors program that was discussed by the group in October and is currently being developed.

One problem with addressing Bath’s homelessness issue is that it’s difficult to know the exact size of the homeless population in Bath or to even develop a reasonable estimate.

According to the Maine State Housing Authority, 1,125 people were homeless in Maine as of Jan. 23, 2018. That’s the night that the state conducted its annual point in time count in which volunteers canvas Maine cities in an attempt to count the number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in the state.

While it’s the best data available, the point in time count is not perfect. It is dependent on the number of volunteers participating in the count and actually finding unsheltered homeless individuals. It’s also not a reliable way to count homeless people who are able to stay on someone’s couch for a couple nights or for other reasons stays away from the shelters and other gathering places.

“There’s really, like, three populations of homeless people. There’s the visible population in a bigger city, with homeless people living in tents or on the sidewalk, many of whom have mental health issues or substance abuse problems,” said Freedman. “There’s people who are one paycheck away from getting evicted … and then there are students, youth, who have bad enough home situations that they don’t want to go home. They’re more typically couch surfers.”

In communities like Bath, where there is no shelter like Tedford Housing in Brunswick and the homeless population is less visible, the count is less reliable.

“These are the neediest of the needy,” said Freedman. “We do have a nice small town that’s very neighbor helping neighbor oriented, and we can capitalize on that close-knit atmosphere that we have.”

nstrout@timesrecord.com