Drew Johnson / The Forecaster

SCARBOROUGH — The Comfort Inn on U.S. Route 1 in Scarborough has been used to temporarily house more than 80 unsheltered residents in the town, but with the hotel owner wanting to go back to operating as a hotel, the inn has worked with the Scarborough Town Council to create an eviction plan to take place over three phases.

All of the unsheltered were to be out by Jan. 1. However, with legal challenges to some of the evictions, it is unlikely that all of the unsheltered residents to be out of the hotel until February.

While the evictions were taking place, the council agreed it would restore the owner’s innkeeper license after almost five months of operating without it, under certain conditions. Conditions included the hotel providing on-site security and on-site social services such as food, mental health services, and case management.

As the transition plan required, all tenants have been given a notice to leave. As of Dec. 19, 46 of the 69 rooms are either vacant or in an eviction judgment agreement that requires them to leave on or before Jan. 3.

Some  have challenged the evictions. Four eviction hearings were scheduled to take place on Dec. 22. The other 19 evictions hearing are to take place on Jan. 19 if not yet vacated. Forty people live in the 23 remaining rooms, eight of whom are children.

November saw high levels of 911 calls for the Comfort Inn, with 68 calls with 75 associated offenses. These are the second highest numbers since March. “Certainly, with all the eviction notices, I think emotions are high and that may account for some of that,” said Town Manager Tom Hall.

As of mid-December there had been 513 emergency calls with 596 offenses in 2022, compared to a total of 101 calls in 2021, according to The Forecaster.

The number of calls decreased in December.

To deal with this, Comfort Inn has agreed to a temporary renewal of their contract with Polaris Security, with a 30-day contract that became effective Dec. 15.

There have been food deliveries to the guests at the inn.

The Opportunity Alliance was providing social services at the inn, along with other hotels in similar situations throughout the county. Due to a lack of funding, The Opportunity Alliance had to remove their support.

The town looked into finding another provider for social services, yet has not been able to find anything. The council has pointed out that the hotel owner has failed to provide adequate social services as per their agreement, although members acknowledged the difficulty of the task.

“Finding social services in this state right now, given the epidemic of homelessness that we’re experiencing … I think our intentions were correct,” Council Chair Jon Anderson said, “the practicality of it is probably out of reach for us (and) for the hotel owner. You can’t find part time social workers,” he said.

Many of the evicted occupants have case managers from the Department of Health and Human Services, yet many have no plan at all. Councilor Jean-Marie Caterina asked for a count on how many of the occupants have case managers.

Town councilors pointed out that they have been addressing a difficult situation to the best of their abilities.

“It’s sad that we’ve got to go through this,” said Caterina. “… The owner made a decision that he wants to go back to running a hotel, so we stepped in and rather than having him just throw everyone out on the street all at once, (we’re) making this plan. It’s the best of the worst situation.”

“I’m very pleased with how everyone has stepped up and risen to a challenging occasion”  Hall added.

Anderson commended the efforts by the town and specifically Social Services Navigator Lauren Dembski-Martin. Among other efforts, Dembski-Martin delivered holiday gifts to the children at the inn on Dec. 21.

“I want to add I think the work Lauren (Dembski-Martin) has done to date is just simply amazing. Just hearing her delivering gifts today to the kids there, just going above and beyond,” Anderson said. “I think at the end of the day I’m just so proud of the town and the way we’re handling this, it’s a tough situation but I think we’re doing a lot of what we can to rectify it.”

Hall said he expects all of the evictions at the inn to be completed by the end of February.

To address the homelessness situation in Scarborough, the town council also voted unanimously to approve the application for a $10,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to develop local strategies on the issue.

“We don’t know what our entry point is and where we can make a difference here,” Hall said. “This is really helping us assess and document the extent of homelessness in our community and really start to understand what are some strategies we can consider locally to help address the challenge.”

The CDBG Program assists states, cities, and communities in developing housing and economic opportunities. According to the Dec. 21 meeting agenda, the application’s goal is “to seek funds under the CDBG Planning Grant program to support activities related to understanding the scope of homelessness in Scarborough and identifying strategies to address community needs.”

The next step in the process would be to complete the proposal by Jan. 19. If funds are awarded for the program, they will be available in July. According to a summary in the agenda, the funds will be used to assess the number, location, and level of need for individuals in Scarborough. The funds will also be used to have an expert in the field assist a committee of stakeholders in developing strategies to address the problem.

“It seems like we’re taking a very strategic, analytical approach to understand the situation and engage some experts in offering ideas, so I think that is a really good next step, given what we’re dealing with,” said Anderson. “Because I totally suspect the challenge isn’t going to go away, so it’s good to get ahead of it, and hopefully we’re successful in getting the funds to support this.”